Re: Curious Electrical Problem

["T.R.E. Jr." <T_R_E_Jr@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

---What could it be? That will only be determined from your testing the 
wires individually. It could simply be a bad ground at the tail light 
housing, a bad connection on the jumper from one light to the other or it 
could be major. I and others have found that the heater wiring has fused 
under the dash and melted the brake light wiring along with it. I have my 
fingers crossed that your is not that complicated, so I would say try 
running a test ground wire from the battery to the tail light housing and 
see if the ground is at fault. The tail light, turn signal, license plate 
and marker lights are all grounded together. Does your side marker light 
work?

---It might be a little extreme to you, but I would cut all the rear 
lighting wires a foot from the bulkhead, unless you can find the terminals 
to replace the original ones in the bulkhead, and run new wire for all the 
rear lighting (one 3-wire and one 4-wire trailer harness works great or two 
4-wire if you want to run the fuel sending circuit too) by linking the new 
wire to the cut end of the old wire harness and pulling the old wire from 
the rear of the vehicle. The wires running to the tail lights (from what I 
have seen) have been subject to heat for far too long and have turned black. 
A have also seen the terminals reduced to green powder due to road salts.

---You can obtain new open-barrel terminals for the 1156 and 1157 bulbs if 
you need them. They are usually called light bulb contacts. They can be 
double-crimped with a standard pair of crimpers that have the double "U" 
shaped crimping tool.

-<Throws in his $0.02 ante>-

---Thank you,
-T.R.E.Jr.
-`73 Scout II (StoneThrower)
-`51 Farmall H (Heinz)
-`49 IH fridge (presently unnamed and in need of a compressor)
-`49 Plymouth Special Deluxe 4-door Sedan (Papapalooza)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Stricker" <jstricke@domain.elided>
To: "IHC Digest" <ihc-digest@domain.elided>
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 7:26 PM
Subject: Curious Electrical Problem


> Normally, electrical problems are no big deal to me, but this one has me
> scratching my head a little.  On my '80 Traveler, my left rear brake light
> doesn't work.  The right side works fine, and both side turn signals work
> fine as well as the BU and tail lights, but the left side brake light 
> simply
> refuses to light.
>
> In looking at the wiring diagrams that are online at the 
> Binderbulletin.org,
> I don't even see a section with the brake light switch in it so I'm 
> limited
> as to how far I can trace it back on the wiring diagram.
>
> Also, the lampholder in the tail lights is different than usual in that it
> has 3 wires to the center instead of two (+ a fourth ground, of course). 
> I
> haven't put a testlight to them yet to see which is hot when, but I do 
> know
> the center is hot when the brake light is active on the right side.  I got
> interrupted before I could check the left so I don't know if I have power 
> to
> it yet at the wire.  I don't have power to the socket.
>
> Any thoughts or ideas?  Run into this before?
>
> I get the digest in digest mode so if you have any thoughts, CC me with
> email at jstricke@domain.elided as well since I'd really like to get this
> solved............
>
> John Stricker