electrical gremlins..

[jonzcustomshop]

I started on hooking the taillights on the wifes 63 step today.
I found a ground, and then with a test light found
lh turn
rh turn
running, r&l
brake ,r&l
I stopped, wrote everything down, and then proceded to hook up the lh taillight.
no blinker-
hooked the right wires to the left, got the right blinker, so the bulb and light housing should be good.
after some trying around I got everything hooked up, had all lights at the rear , except for the lh blinker.
a test light to the connection showed no lh blinker still, so I chased up the harness a bit, and found an old splice. I unwrapped the tape and started testing in front of the splice to find the lh blinker.... now both the brake lights (that did work) do not work anymore.....
so now I am down to rh blinker(works, and running lights(work).
through all of this the lh and rh blinkers still worked up front, so I assume the flasher is still good....
giving up for the night..
any ideas of what the problem is , where to look next?

[protrash64]

Check your grounding at the taillites.....this seems to be the hardest thing on these housings.

If you have been taking the bulbs in and out of the housings, and the housings are original, check to make sure that the pins are 'returning' to make contact with the bulb. Mine were sticking down and I had to clean them thoroughly.

Good luck, I hate this crap!!

[jonzcustomshop]

...so as of now there is no ground at either taillight, is there supposed to be, and it goes from ???, to I assume a good spot on the frame?

[apachedaddy]

The tail light ground themselfs to the bed. I ran a ground wire from the tail light buck to the fram to fix my same problem.

[jonzcustomshop]

so just a wire from the bolt holding the taillight to the bracket, and then to the frame?
will try that today..

[LILRED66]

The taillight buckets & park lamp buckets are grounded to the surrounding sheet metal, which in turn, is grounded to the frame...everything is grounded back to the battery, in theory. I have run jumper ground wires from the back of the buckets on the taillights to the inner bed sheet metal with good success.

[Slow Build]

Originally Posted by apachedaddy

The tail light ground themselfs to the bed. I ran a ground wire from the tail light buck to the fram to fix my same problem.

Did this last Friday on my fleetside. Just ran a ground from frame to the screw that fastens the each bucket. I tried a ground from frame to bed first but got really inconsistent voltage readings at the socket. I guess rust isn't the best conductor of electricity.

[lakeroadster]

Running the separate ground works great. I did this on my grandfathers 72 C20 probably 20 years ago. Whenever he would turn his left or right signal on all the signal lights would flash. The ground wire fixed it.

The rustier the truck, the better the ground trick works.

[Rich 5150 69]

Thats what I had done with my truck, ground wire from base of both tail lights to cab,,

[jonzcustomshop]

thanks guys I got 'em working, here were some of the issues....
-I had forgotten to hook up the ground strap from the motor to the frame after the engine swap.
-the brake light switch was dirty, and had stuck-that fixed the brakes.
-the connection at the column was loose for the turn signal switch, some wiggling of the wires got the sigal back.
-then the signal on the left was real weak, so I hooked up a ground wire, and it brightened up.