hi all,

new to fte. sorry for the dumb questions in advance.

i have a 52 f-1 i put a big block in her...oh baby it was tight..so i'm have a hard time getting running lights and blinkers and brake light to work correctly. currently i have brake lights and and blinkers. i cant get blinkers or brake lights to work right when i turn on park lights. i have tried a couple of different ways so i unhooked the park lights...i figure i should have blinkers and brake lights rather then park lights and just dont drive at night...lol

so whats the deal? what am i missing here?

tailights are oem 2 wire with body as ground
front blinker/park light are oem 1 wire with body as ground

any ideas?

 

The first thing to check would be all your grouning points and connections. 99% of the time, that's the issue with most electrical problems. Make sure your don't have paint, rust or scalebetween the lamp body, bracket, and frame rail. It sounds as though your park lights may be trying to ground through the brake/turn circuit. Is your problems in the front, too? Have you converted the front lamps to double filiment bulbs?

 

havent change the front to double...i cant figure out how to wire to get all three to work(blinker, park and brakes)i can get any two to work..how do i get the third to work with only two wires..cant figure it out

 

by chance did 52 f-1 have second taillights. i could do it if it had second set..but i dont know if it had them

 

Originally, turn signals on our trucks was an option, either factory or dealer installed. They used a second set of lights front and rear. On more modern vehicles, brake lights are wired through the turn signal switch. Brake lights and turn signals use the same half of the bulb, and the signal switch can override the brake lamp to flash the bulb for signaling. That's why you only need 2 wires at the lamps. Without the right kind of switch, the easiest thing to do, if you want turn signals, is to run a completely separate circuit with separate lamps for the flashing circuit, like the factory did.

 

thanks for the info

 

Bottom line is you haven't missed anything, you simply don't have the right equipment or wiring to have all the lights work correctly.

As Wayne mentioned, you need double wire, base grounded sockets and bulbs - both front and back.

The ones in the back already should be. Your signal lights use the brake light power and circuit in the back and your brake light circuit should be run through your turn signal switch to share that power. However, when the signal lights were added, it required the addition of a separate brake/signal light wire to one of the two tail lights (so instead of now just having brakes to both and running lights to both, you have running lights to both and brake/signal light to left and right lights independently) Your running lights in the back (and parking lights in front) come straight off the headlight switch.

Currently, in the front, you have a choice. You can either have signal lights OR running lights - not both - unless you change out your sockets to two wire double filament bas grounded type. Currently your sockets have two wires, but one is used as a ground connection. The other is running lights for both lights.

If you opt for signals with no running lights, you will need to run a second wire to one of the two lights (and the current wire to only one of them) so instead of one wire powering both lights, you will have left and right powered independently. You would disconnect the parking light wire on the headlight switch and rewire it onto you signal light switch wire along with the new one you just ran (each has it's own lead from the signal switch).

The best solution up front though is it replace the current sockets with a double wire base grounded (dual filament) socket and bulb and wire both parking and signal lights into it.

What folks used to try and get away with is to splice in the signal wires to the parking lights wire - which I'm almost certain has happened on your truck as well.

So, to correct this, first make sure all your sockets are in good clean serviceable order (ensure good grounding and points contacts as Wayne mentioned) then ensure your wiring is connected correctly.

Here are a couple of wiring diagrams for your lights and headlight switch. The signal light switch in this diagram is the 7 wire "Everlasting" Switch. If your is different, then let me know and I'll post the diagram for what you have.





For our purposes today, a "BUS" is a power source (ie fuse panel, circuit breaker, ignition switch, etc) In your case if you still have the OEM wiring in the truck (if you don't let me know) the "HOT BUS" shown in these diagrams is the circuit breaker mounted on the back of your instrument cluster. For yours the "SWITCHED BUS" would be the "ACC" post of the ignition switch.

Good luck and if you have any questions, let us know.