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I chased a short in my lighting to the rats nest the previous owner made when wiring some aftermarket tail lights. I cut the (B.S.) harness right behind the plug and ran the yellow/green/brown wires back aft, IAW the diagram below. I bought some repo tailights and both came with a green and black wire, my initial idea was to put the green on green/yellow for the right/left respectively and the black to the brown wire. Is that correct?
Also I bought some conduit, pictured below. It has a flared end with some kind of bushing and the other end looks kind of like a male end. The flared end kind of fits over the rubber boot on the tail light and I found a bushing that fits the bed and the conduit fits in pretty tight. Pictures below. Is there a better way to do this or am I wasting time with chinsey crap?
Finally are the brackets supposed to go behind the bed frame or between the hinge and bed? The license plate braket hangs pretty much behind the bumper and its going to obscure the plate. Thoughts?
Green to green/yellow? Black to brown?
Chinsy conduit
Hidden License Plate
Any glaring issues? besides the damage done by the previous welded on braket.
I don't know how the light and brakes go but could you flip the brackets to raise the light so the plate will clear the bumper?
As for the light wiring you need to find what color on the light does the running & tuen/stop light part of the bulbs then you will know how the truck side gets wired.
On the conduit if the light was mounted higher it would not look so long. Then if it works I would use it.
The other thing you could use is vacuum line. Run the wires inside it like you would the conduit.
Dave - - - -
My truck has the bracket on the side of the post facing the front of the vehicle as does yours. There is no separate ground wire to the frame which would suggest that it good to keep the surface from the light and the bracket and the bracket and the pickup box clean. My truck also has a rubber bushing where the wire passes through the pickup box. As the PO had not hacked the harness to death it was plug and play.
Thanks Shadyside! I dissambled both sides and mocked it up. It required cleaning the holes in the bracket to get a good ground as you suspected. Turn signals and tail lights work good but I don’t have brake lights or hazard lights going to the rear. All forward lights work correctly. I’ve changed the brake light switch (and bypassed it) I’m pretty hung up on ideas. it’s got 12V on one side of it.
Last edited by 65navyf100; Aug 30, 2018 at 12:30 AM.
Reason: Addition
If you have 12 volts in and you can't get 12 volts out that brake light switch is NG even new they can be bad.
Now if 12 volts in & out and still nothing out back look at the turn signal switch as the brake light wire goes to it then out to the lights.
Sometimes moving it left n right can clean the contacts and start working.
Dave - - - -
Thanks Shadyside! I dissambled both sides and mocked it up. It required cleaning the holes in the bracket to get a good ground as you suspected. Turn signals and tail lights work good but I don’t have brake lights or hazard lights going to the rear. All forward lights work correctly. I’ve changed the brake light switch (and bypassed it) I’m pretty hung up on ideas. it’s got 12V on one side of it.
That 12V should flow if it has a path to ground. Right now it is referred to as a "potential difference" which is all that is needed to power something.
I'm going to throw out some ideas based upon things I've encountered in real life and on the forum here.
1. Are the rear bulbs good - both filaments?
2. Are they inserted correctly - don't throw anything at me, but I've worked on vehicles where people forced the bulbs into the sockets in such a way that the directional nubs were somehow ignored and "made to fit" even though it didn't really. I pulled the bulbs out and flipped them 180 and put back in and they worked!!
3. Correct 1157 bulbs? Again, don't throw anything at me, but I've seen people force 1156 bulbs into an 1157 socket. The nubs again should have given a clue but that's not always the case.
4. Normal 1157 bulbs? I've seen the newer heavy duty 1157 bulbs only light one filament because there is not enough current to light up the heavier filaments. Switching back to a regular duty 1157 cured that one.
As mentioned in post 6 there is some integration between the turn signals and the brake lights as they use the same filament in the 1157 bulb. That the lights in the front work and the back doesn't suggests the problem may be in a plug but I don't have the electrical smarts to advise on that. Tail light bracket is attached using the same bolts that hold the tail gate hinge on to the rear of the body. Except for white paint example shown is as built.
Thanks for the responses and especially for the photo. I'm going to replace the turn signal switch, which hasn't auto cancelled since I've owned it. Just to be clear for future readers. The wiring has been returned to the configuration in the diagram above. All the lights work with the exception of rear brake lights and rear hazard lights, 12V is going into the brake light switch and even jumpered the brake lights don't work. All bulbs are installed correctly and bench tested. As Dave mentioned the brake light switch goes to the turn signal switch next, so that's where I'm headed.
the directional, brake and 4 way all use the same wire and filiment in bulb, so if one of those works and the others don't it's more than likely a problem in the directional switch.
I bought the $35 dollar turn signal switch from DC. During the initial mock up I still had the same issues, as I looked up the wires I noticed there were splices right before the six pin connector, on the switch side. A quick continuity check showed they were the fault. After fully installing the switch my lights have returned to normal operation. And my turn signals cancel now, yay! Thanks to everyone for their assistance.
Dave, pictured below. The bracket shares the two bolts from the tailgate hinge. The whole shooting match is repo stuff form C&G. I did trim the conduit to about half length from what is seen in post 1. The plate number is whited out but as you can imagine its pretty obscured when viewed from the rear.
Last edited by 65navyf100; Sep 9, 2018 at 11:35 PM.
Reason: addition
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