Rear Lights not working, any suggestions?

[JrCarr]

I little over a year ago I took the bed off of my truck. I disconnected the rear lights and the truck sat for a while. About 8 months ago I reconnected the lights and everything was backwards. When the light switch was off the rear lights were on. When the light switch was on the rear lights turned off. I disconnected everything and put it on the back burner. Now last night I tried again and now I don't have any lights at all. If anyone can give me suggestions as to troubleshooting this I will appreciate it.

[Mator]

Make sure you have a good ground. After painting my bed the new paint was preventing me from getting a good ground and was doing funny things with my lights. After reading a few post I started to look in the direction and sure enough it worked.

[cdowns]

get under the truck and rough up one of the rear crossmembers of the bed a small 1" spot and do the same thing to one of the crossmembers on the frame and take a piece of at least 12gauge wire and connect the two with selftapping screws// after completing that fix check your lights for proper operation

[Jurassic-1]

Yes make sure the bed is clean and paint and rust free when the bed is bolted down make sure it is tight. The bed should have ground wires from the wire harness to the bed pocket area or the tail light backing plate. Make sure all connections are clean. You can unplug it again and check for power at the plug. If there is none check power at fire wall plug.