my 66 slick is of a Heinz 57 variety and subsequently there are more wires, cut, sliced and diced than I know what to do with.

just discovered that my brake lights work, however they appear to be of lesser intensity than what you'd expect suggesting that the the trucks parking lights are coming on when the brake is applied.

If I turn on the parking lights the brake lights are BRIGHTER than when the brakes lights are applied.

and, if the trucks lights are on, either parking or full, the brake lights do not light.

Subsequently I believe somewhere in the mix the parking lights and brake light sources are switched, crossed or ?

Any thoughts, suggestions, ideas on how to quickly get to the rout cause of the problem taking into account I'm pretty inept when it comes to electircal and all the spaghetti I have in the vehicle?

Happy New Year to you all and thanks for your feedback.

by the way, I'm thinking of having the truck completely re-wired and anyones thoughts on how to and where to would be of great value

 

You have a grounding problem with the rear lights. This can be caused by a bad or corroded connection between the brass part of the bulb and the socket, a bad socket, or bad ground to the socket.

If you have a plastic socket, you will have a seperate ground wire bolted to the sheetmetal. If you have a metal socket, it will rely on the socket mount for grounding.

In either case, if all else fails, you may have a grounding problem between the bed and the frame, especially if the frame has just been painted, or it's very rusted. If this truck has been a project and has been subject to a total teardown at sometime, there may be some ground wires missing from the engine block to the firewall and frame up front.

 

Welcome to Fords. Ford stands for Fu#$ing Original Ridiculous Design.
In this case, you have one of four problems, listed here from MOST probable (#1) to
LEAST probable (#4).

#1. Your tail light bulbs are old, and need to be replaced.
(I know, that sounds retarded). But seriously. Your tail lights are most likely
1157 bulbs. When they get old, the filaments droop and sometimes touch. This
causes ALL sorts of weird things to happen in a Ford.

#2. Someone at sometime FORCED the tail light bulbs into the sockets -- BACKWARDS!
Take the tail light bulbs out, and look at them. The base has two little pins, one
of them is closer to the bottom then the other. Look into the socket. You will
see two channels in the side of the socket. One of them is deeper. Line up the
pin that is closer to the bottom of the bulb (contact end is the bottom) with the
deeper channel. The bulb should install easily.
NOTE: If the bulb is backwards, you may have to destroy it to remove it.

#3. See the post prior to mine.

#4. The tail light outlets are wired backwards.
MAKE SURE THE BULBS ARE INSERTED CORRECTLY BEFORE ATTEMPTING THIS
SOLUTION!!! Also make sure NO OTHER BULBS ARE BURNED OUT and REPLACE
THE FRONT BLINKER BULBS (also 1157's) as they can also cause this.
Look at the back side of the outlet. You will have either 2 or 3 wires. If you
have 2 wires, this will be easy. Just cut them and reverse them. If you have 3
wires, USUALLY one is a different color then the other 2. Sometimes all three are
colored different. You need to figure out which one is ground. Swap the OTHER
two wires.


Hope this helps.

 

If you wanted to rewire the vehicle your self, look into "painless" brand wireing harness kits. Make a tough job much easier. Spendy though. $$

 

thanks to both replys, I'm confident one of the fix's will work.

greatly, greatly appreciated

happy truckin!

 

so,

checked all the connects, seemed ok without tearing each apart.

replaced all the bulbs and got: all bulbs lit in park/headlamps on BUT, the brake lights are on, not the parking lamps.

then,

reversed the wires on each brake light(two, thankfully) and it does not make a difference which way its wired. same result

Still have the brake lights on when the switch is in park mode and the park light is on when the brakes are applied.

i guess the good news is at least I have lights that come on when I hit the brakes, even though they are somewhat dimmer than the true brake lights.

The bad news, at night i'd be running with the brake lights on when the lights are on and no-one could tell when I'm applying the brakes!

OOPS! Guess I'm not driving at night for a while.

any other suggestions out there would be greatly appreciated?

thanks

ronindog

ps. one of the front turn lamps was on the high filiment when turned on. I switched the wiring and it went to the lower intensity. A small bit of good news, i guess.

 

Take the socket/wire pigtail completely out and get a small battery charger and test the bulb with that. Or you could use the battery up front, though not as handy as a battery charger.

See if you can make heads or tails what is going on with the socket/bulb. One wire should be the bright brake/turn and the other the tail lamp. If it still is messing up, you know the problem is right there in your hand, and you may have to buy new sockets. They have universal ones in the store that will probably work.

 

not sure what i'd be looking for?

both the parking and brake portion of the bulb work and the small round insert within the socket is aligned with the indent inside at the base.

also the high and low pins are aligned properly when inserted.

other thoughts?

 

What I am suggesting is you hook the battery charger to the ground of the socket, and then touch the + of the charger to one of the wires. The solid brown wire should be the dimmer filament. Then touch the charger + wire to the colored wire. This should be the brighter filament.

If this all works with it out of the truck, then you know the problem is elsewhere. If it doesn't work, and no amount of fiddling with it will make it work correctly, I would get whole new sockets and try that.

 

ok, i'll give it a try tomorrow and let you know the outcome.

as i think about this i'm guessing all signs are pointed to bad tail light socket and body units. One of them had be "fiddled" with before i got into this issue.

Unfortunatley LMC doesn't carry them for this year so i may have to find another source or get some at the salvage yard.

thanks again

ronindog

 

Wow. Sounds like you've got yourself a headache there. I had the exact same problem with the lights on the back of my parents RV (Ford Chasis) -- TWICE. Both times I had different problems. Why on earth the lights behave the way they do on Fords has always puzzled me.


Anyway, heres what the two fixes I made were (assuming your FRONT blinker/running lights operate correctly). Also, you will want to swap the wires back before you do these. Also, make sure you do not have ANY lights burned out in the rear half of the vehicle. Since both tail lights are affected, I suggest #1 is most likely.

1.
Look under the back end. Almost all fords use a universal plug for the rear lights. Follow the wires from ALL the rear lights. They will combine into one bundle of wires and go to a big connector, usually on the driver side. Normally the connector will have 5 wires. (Ground, lights, left, right, reverse). That big connector is the universal connector.
On the side that goes back to the tail lights, look for the wire that goes to the chasis (aka. GROUND). Its probably hanging in the breeze. Reattach this wire to the frame somewhere. A good solid connection is a must. Wiggle it to make sure it doesn't budge.

2. Replace the sockets. All it takes is enough corrosion in the wrong place, and your outlets will act strange. Usually that only affects one side, however, both could be effected.

You can prove you have one of these problems easily. Just get a really long piece of wire, attach one end to your negative (-) battery post and touch the other end to the base of the light bulb.
If that makes the light you are touching it to work properly, then you know you are on the right track.
Now try touching your wire to the outside of the outlet instead.
If the light still works, you have a problem like #1, OR the metal that your socket is plugged into is not grounded.
IF the light does NOT work properly now, but it DID when you touched your wire to the base, replace the outlet.
Sometimes the little wings that hold the outet in corrode. If you have blue/white build up there, clean it off and also clean the surfaces in the hole where it mounts.

I am assuming you have METAL sockets (outlets) that tightly fit into METAL holes. If that is NOT true, PM me and I'll give advise on how to quickly fix this.

Hope this helps.

 

Try www.partsamerica.com. Depending on where you live, most autoparts stores (Advance, Kragen, Auto Zone, Napa, Discount) carry universal sockets. (No need to replace the entire fixture, just the socket).
Look through the display and find the ones closest to yours. As long as they are marked for the same kind of bulb as you had before (I am assuming 1157 -- round metal base, 2 filaments), its ok if you have to modify the hole slightly to get the new outlets to fit.

hope this helps.

 

kdsisf, thanks

i did trace the wiring back to front and believe it or not i did NOT find the unit you noted. I'll look again and see if I missed it, but dont' thing I did.

going to run by a couple parts store to see if they have the sockets as its sounds like a good next step.

owe you guys for your time and suggestions and i'll keep you posted if any of this works.

have a good one

ronindog

 

so, there is no junction, only one flat three wire plug in the engine comparment with a brown, yellow and green wire.

only three going back, which makes sense. brakes/turn, running and ground?

I replaced both sockets

and

still get the lower intensity light when applying the brakes and higher intensity light when applying the parking/running lights

also

turn signals work but with the lower intensity illumination.

have tried switching the wires, to no avail, and any combination there of.

On one set up I do get a "dimmer" illumination from one of the lights, so

I'm back to what someone originally noted, that's a grounding issue or the wires are touching somewhere in the course of their journey. The three wires were run back and hand taped and are NOT factory original.

Off to the parts store to get a couple alligator clip testing wires to try grounding the bed to the frame and engine to the frame in case its that simple. Nah, don't believe that ;-)

If not, maybe run some wires direct from the connector in the engine compartment if I can figure out the color code for brakes, running lights and ground.

Wish me luck guys

ronindog

 

Ok,


If you only have 3 wires, then they are left, right, lights. Ground will come from the (-) battery pole, to the engine block (via the [-] battery cable) to the frame OR body via a grounding strap, then to the body or frame via another grounding strap. The idea is, all metal parts grounded. If your grounding straps are missing, then you need to replace them. I have used battery cables with the bolt hole end on both end (like the one from the soliniod to the starter)as replacement grounding straps before.

Once again, the outlets ARE metal, correct? Also, they fit into a metal hole, NOT the plastic light fixture, correct?

Just out of curiosity, do the tailights work at all when the outlet is NOT in the hole.


again, hope this stuff is helpful