New 73 Scamp owner

Great car Zack. I love the look of it.

The '73 Scamp tail lights are the same as the '70 Darts. I had trouble at different times with the socket losing it's ground and thus losing the brake and signal lights. On the housings, there is no ground wire to the socket. The socket is crimped onto the housing and is grounded through the housing bolts to the bumper.

I tested it by taking off the lens and holding a jumper wire against the socket beside the bulb and then touched the bumper. Lo and behold, the lamp lit up. I pried up the edges of the socket it a couple spots and scraped both the underside of the socket and the housing and then tapped them back together with a small drift. This worked for a couple months and then I lost my ground again. I did this a couple times on both sides.

I finally fixed it by taking my Dremel and making a small shallow groove in the backside of each socket and soldered a wire to it. I soldered a terminal ring to the other end and ran one of the housing bolts to the bumper through it. Now the socket has a hard wired ground and has given me no trouble for 4 years now. Mine is a daily driver so I was more concerned with safety than factory correctiveness. You can't see the wires even if you try because they are up behind the bumper on top of the housing.

I hope this helps. Hey, take a drive in a month up to Redding and enter her in Kool April Nites. We have a great cruise on Friday night and the main show on Saturday. We need more Mopars!

http://www.koolaprilnites.com/