tail light help please

[BestMix]

Need someone with more knowledge than me please...

Putting a 71 swinger back together and came across a weird issue…

Tail lights, brake lights, blinkers, plate light all work fine with the head lights off.

Turn the head lights on and everything goes haywire. Back-up lights burn when you hit the brakes, left tail burn bright without touching the brakes, blinkers flash the back-up lights, plate light stops working, and back-up lights don't work in reverse.

Bulbs are fine, voltage at the factory harness reads correct, no exposed wires, no problems with front lights or markers… it all looks good.

Where are the factory grounds located? Any other ideas?

 

[slickchick]

I think inside the trunk ,in the trunk latch area ?? :bounce:

 

[BestMix]

thanks s.c.! anyone else??

 

[RedFish]

Almost everything on these cars is chassis grounded. If the fixtures aren't screwed to the body they wont work right. The only light fixtures that would require a actual ground wire are those mounted in a plastic grille. You may still have other problems though.
If this is a fresh painted car, you'll need to scratch away a little paint here and there to provide a chassis ground path.
We'll look further if needed.

 

[RedFish]

I've also seen cases where the different color lenses were all in the same fixture. The bulb sockets were placed behind the wrong lens. Hope this helps

 

[abodyjoe]

the tail light buckets ground to the bumper when you bolt them in. i grounded all my tail light sockets individually when i had silly issues with the rear lights. they work fine now and are brighter then before.


all my stuff worked fine until you turned the lights on. then the one rear turn/brake light wouldn't work. replaced the bulb and it looked fine because the head lights weren't on.. then one of the next nights out someone told me i had a bulb out. only then did i look into it a little further and realized they worked fine until the headlights came on.. drove me nuts for a bit.. the problem ended up being that when i rewired the car we cleaned and blasted all the light sockets in the car and rebuilt them.. cleaning out the rust must have loosened up the tail light sockets in the tail light housing and made for a poor ground...

i soldiered a wire connector to each (all 4) light sockets then ran a wire from that connector to where the light housing bolts tot he bumper.. can't see it unless you know its there and like i said i have no more issues with the tail lights and they are brighter then ever. its usually something simple...

 

[BestMix]

excellent, thanks guys! I'll try making new grounds and see if that works. Been driving me nuts and the lawman even issued me a warning regarding faulty equipment.

ABodyJoe... I want your car!!!

 

[abodyjoe]

thanks man. but really its just a rust bucket with a nice suspension and wheels onit..

 

[BestMix]

here's my bucket with a backyard paint job...

 

[abodyjoe]

looks pretty good to me.

 

[67Dart273]

i grounded all my tail light sockets individually.................
i soldiered a wire connector to each (all 4) light sockets then ran a wire from that connector to where the light housing bolts tot he bumper..

I nearly posted this earlier, and agree completely.

I'd go a step further, run the ground wire you soldered to all the sockets to one "piptail" and run it "up out of the weather" and fasten to a solid bolt. If you have to, drill a hole in an obscure spot.

Back in the days when some of my friends drove "chivvies" (Well, I had a 63 SS) and they had some of the lights in the TRUNK LID, this was common practice.

 

[abodyjoe]

I'd go a step further, run the ground wire you soldered to all the sockets to one "piptail" and run it "up out of the weather" and fasten to a solid bolt. If you have to, drill a hole in an obscure spot.

i'll probably do that down the road. it was too damn hot out the day i did mine though..lol