Slow-LG4

Before I start, I appreciate all the help you guys have given me already. I am looking for a little more insight into my problem. Ill list the facts as I know them:

1. My brake lights do not work, however the switch gets power in and both switch wire outlets are throwing out 12V as they should ( I would assume then that the switch is good ). Also, all the fuses in the fuse box are working and have power as they should.

2. My left turn signal does not blink (steady light), but the passenger side does.

3. When the headlights are on, the drivers side rear marker light comes on, but when making a left turn the marker light does not come on.

4. At the wiring harness at the rear of the trunk, there are several colored wires that go thru the frame of the trunk into driver side tailight assembly. I have determined that yellow is for turn signal operations and brown is for headlights. Both sides of the harness test ok for headlight and turn signal operations at the prospective colored wires terminals.

5. Coming from the harness is one major black wire, this I assume being the ground wire. It is connected to some type of metal connector which is then bolted into the trunk. It seems to have a good clean connection.

6. The sockets for the bulbs themselves each have a brown, black and a yellow wire connected, with the exception of the leftmost socket of the two on the driver side, which has 2 yellow wires and a black and a brown. Is this extra wires possibly for the turn signal operation? I have replaced the bulbs in the sockets twice to no avail.

I know I am real close to pinpointing the problem, yet cannot find it. I apologize for the length of this post, but I felt it was necessary to give you guys the most info that way you could better know the problem and possibly provide me with a solution.

I find it confusing that power gets to the sockets for the tailights to come on with the headlights, but not the brake lights. Far as I know, there is only one ground per socket for both brake a tail light functions.

Well there it is, once again Im sorry for having you guys read so much. My next option is to buy two more rpelacement sockets from Autozone and splice them in hoping the socket itself is bad. Thank you in advance for any help you guys can give me.

[This message has been edited by Slow-LG4 (edited November 03, 2000).]

Tim Burgess

It sounds like the ground connection between the left sockets and the chassis is not connected. It appears, from the schematic, that there is only one ground connection point for the rear harness to the chassis, so you will have to pinpoint the place in the rear harness that the ground is broken. Is there power at the light blue wire at the rear harness when the brake pedal is pressed? Do both the frt & rear left turn bulbs come on steady when the left turn switch is on?

Tim

HiG4s

Get a Ohm meter and with the car off, check from chassie ground to bulb socket ground on all the bulbs to find the one without a good ground. From there you can either replace that assembly or just run a separate wire to chassie ground. Because of the way cars are wired, a missing ground in one place will cause lots of strange symptoms as the circuit "steals" a ground from somewhere else.

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98 Integra, M5, cold air intake, K&N filter
86 Trans Am, M5, 350 4bbl, headers, exhuast, Edelbrock intake, Vette heads.

jms

iTrader: (1)

Make sure the bulbs are good. They can fool you. Also, the rear bulbs have a correct way to go in the socket, with two small pins sticking out of either side of the bulb. If you notice, one pin is located farther down the metal body than the other. This corresponds with the slots in the plastic for the bulb sockets. While looking in the sockets, clean the metal contacts (flat strips of metal) by scratching them with something sharp. Also clean the bottom contact points of the bulbs. A possibility for the brake lights is the brake light switch that mounts just above your feet on the brake pedal bracket. It has plastic threads and can easily get out of adjustment. It has a plunger in it that moves when the brake pedal moves. That turns on the brake lights. Keep plugging away, you don't have very much wrong.
jms