Okay, so I just bought a replacement 1992 Camaro RS for one I lost in a divorce a few years back. Here's the skinny. When my running lights are off and I press the brakes, my tail lights do light up. However, when they're on, nothing new lights up. I think this is a matter of single filament vs dual filament bulbs and is not my main problem. My 3rd light isn't coming on, but I haven't tried a new bulb yet.

My main question is this: When I press the brake pedal, my dash lights light up (even if they're off) and there's a beeping noise. I can't for the life of me remember if my old one did this or not. So, is this normal?

 

No one with a '92 can walk out to their car, keep their lights off, press on their brake pedal and tell me if their dash lights come on? Bummer....

 

Check the ground connection G303 to the hatch bracket. There should be a harness coming back to the center of the cargo compartment behind the plastic trim panels. If that ground (or the splice in the harness about a foot from the end) is not making a good connection then you might have symptoms like you describe.

EDIT: All of those lamps depend upon that ground connection, otherwise wacky things happen as a new ground is located via various bulbs in the dash usually. You probably also have both filaments lighting when you put on the brakes, check it out.

 

my dash lights dont came one when i press the brakes. something is wrong with your car

 

Heh. Thank you both. Both were helpful answers.

In the end, the previous owner had put a single filament bulb in one of the tail lights that wants a double. It turned out to be as simple as putting the right kind of bulb in to fix all my problems. The high mount stop light was just a bent connector.

 

I was literally just about to start a new thread with this same exact question. Been dealing with this / ignoring it for about 3 years (was doing it when I bought the car), went through all my wiring under the dash and couldn't find anything.
I suppose checking the bulbs should have come to mind, but it didn't.

Dumb question, but anyone have any input on what bulbs go where..because I'm guessing mine are not in the proper holders.

 

I just went to Autozone and let them tell me what belonged where.

 

Take the bulbs out and look inside the sockets for one contact or two. Single filament or two

 

Will do! Thanks

 

On Camaros, the amber turn signal takes a single-filament bulb. The brakes take a dual-filament bulb (tail lamp + brake).

The reason you were seeing strange lighting issues was caused by the fact that the wrong bulb (or a bad bulb or even bad ground) was preventing the brake circuit from lighting up correctly and instead if found a different path for the current - through the park lamp circuit which also illuminated your dash. Electricity is like water, it tries to find the easiest path back to ground.

 

Yeah, I found that both the brake lights (not the tail lamp + brake, just the brake) were both running dual filaments and only have one contact so they need to be singles. This solved some of the problem as now the dash lights don't come on anymore. But the running lights still come on when I hit the brakes. But I also found that the lights in the my spoiler third brake light were half blown out and missing one completely, so I'm off to go buy more and hopefully that solves everything

 

Alright, I went down to my local NAPA (small town...choices are NAPA and CarQuest). Found the small bulbs for the spoiler brake light (expensive little buggers) and asked him about the tail lights and which ones were single and which were double filaments. Their system told him that all my bulbs (brake/running, brake, turn signal) are double filament and my only single filament is the reverse bulb.
So I asked him to look up replacement sockets/bulb holder, and same thing, everything he but the reverse light he has listed as a 3 wire, double filament bulb socket. I'm not at the car but I remember the brake and pretty sure the turn signal as 2 wire, single contact / single filament bulb sockets.
Can anyone shed light on what exactly is supposed to be where?

 

Well, I stand corrected. I just went to look at my rear wiring harness and your NAPA guys are right.
The turn signal does use only one filament but that doesn't mean that it uses a single filament. The socket for the turn signal is identical to the socket for the brake and tail light but it is missing one pin. So your turn signals do take dual-filament bulbs afterall.
Not sure why Chevy did it this way but that's just one thing I learned to live with: not questioning their questionable choices.
Their motto should not use a rock. It's pointless. It should say "Chevy, learn to live with it".

 

Well I have replaced every bulb on the entire car (and made sure they are all in the right spot) and I still have the problem of my running lights coming on when I hit my brakes.
Any ideas of a good place to start looking for the problem rather than just diving blindly into the wiring harness and hoping to stumble across a bad wire?

Also found out that my spoiler 3rd brake light doesn't work. But that will be a different issue all in itself.

 

You still likely have a bad ground.
Pull each brake light bulb at a time and see if that solves the problem. If not, pull both bulbs. That must solve the problem. If it does not, you have a wiring problem.

Let us know what you find.
Lou

 

So if I pull that individual bulb (or a pair, like both brakes, both turn signals, etc) and one of those has the bad ground the lights wont come on with the brakes. Huh...I just assumed it would be much harder to track down the culprit than that. Thanks Lou!

Hopefully I'll dive into it this afternoon. At work right now and I need to go check some prices on some small garage heaters, mine decided to crap out a couple weeks ago and right now it is 4 degrees here, so I'm not going to go freeze to play with wires that I wont be able to even feel with frozen fingers haha.

 

Right. The brake and park lamp circuits are separate. They only come together at the tail lights, on the brake/tail bulbs. There is the most common problem source.

4 degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit?

 

Farenheit. Unfortunately the warmest it will be for the next few months will be around 20, maybe 30. So when it hits 30 the t-tops come off! haha
Not looking forwards to the -10 to -30 it hits here every winter though.
(See why I say I need a new garage heater? haha)

 

I see.

Well we are getting a cold front too. We will need to switch from A/C to heating next week. It is supposed to get down to "freezing" 60's.
Oh man, does it mean that I have to dig in the closet to find my long-lost sweater?

Just to tease ya a little.

 

It's alright. I can take the teasing. Althought I haven't even busted out the sweater yet. Still wearing short sleeves to work.

But I'll remember that when it is 100+ for you and a nice and cool 70 here

 

Thanks guys, I'm having the same issues, and will try the thing. And I too thought this might be a bigger problem, whew!

 

Repaired all rear lamps, just like magic.... problem solved!

Thanks again!

 

Way to keep at it until the problems were solved..

 

Well I pulled the bulbs one at a time and the problem still persists....any ideas as to what to check next?

 

If you removed all the bulbs from the rear and your running lights (in the front I assume) still come on when you push the brake pedal, then you have a socket that has an internal short or you have short in the harness somewhere.

 

Is there any way to test the sockets or is this just a replace them all situation? Judging by how gnarly some of the sockets look I would assume it is that and hopefully not a short somewhere in the harness somewhere...

 

Well if your sockets look "gnarly" then there's a good chance they are the problem. Try scraping them out with something. Make sure the two contacts in the bottom are not shorted together with some crust.

 

In the future you may want to allow for more than 11 hours over night for an answer. Many people that own these cars live in North America, and spend much of that particular chunk of time sleeping.

It sounds like you have a typical ground issue for the rear (tail light) harness. What happens when the parking lights are off, and you press teh brakes, the brake light circuit tries to find a path to ground, the easiest way is through the parking light circuit at that point, because of the shared ground node, it will then source ground through the parking light circuit, which in turn lights up your dash lights, you should also find that your front parking lights will illuminate as well, though usually at less than full brightness.
If I remember right the ground for the tail light harness is on the rear most bulkhead between the tail lights and the plastic trim, on the inside. Should be able to access this ground point by removing the plastic interior trim. Make sure it is not corroded, or that the wire is not broken. If I am recalling the correct point, the style of connector seems to be bad for breaking the wire at the termination point.
Another ground point that might be possible is behind the left rear interior plastics, but it has been a while since I had to get into the tail light wiring of a 3rd gen, so my locations may be off a bit, but there will be a ground point from the rear harness, that would be the first place I would look.

 

Just to clarify: you pulled only one bulb at a time and you still saw the problem. No change in behavior with the left bulb vs the right bulb removed?
Did you pull BOTH brake bulbs?
That sort of details make a huge difference to us, electrical guys.

Do your brake lights come on with tail lights? If not, logic dictates that your sockets do not have a short (but you can still clean them!) and I would repeat again that my #1 suspect is a bad ground/wire on the brake socket(s).

If you feel like it, you can use your DMM to perform a quick voltage test.
Pull one brake bulb.
Turn on the park lamps and measure voltage on the 3 contacts inside the empty socket (the cylindrical metal wall is the ground contact).
Turn off park lamps.
Apply brake and perform same measurement.

I wonder if you will find 0 anywhere. ;-)

 

Six_shooter, no worries, James has been nothing but nice and polite, he is not pestering anybody with questions. Oh, and this kid writes legible English. So he is definitely alright in my book.

But I know exactly what kind of behavior you are referring to. I've seen members bully people for answers, posting every 20 minutes.

Like I said, no worries, this is a good thread. Hopefully we can nip the problem in the butt (or the bud?).

 

I apologize if my post came across as pestering. In my line of work I work a lot of odd hours and did a double back last night into this morning (got off at 10pm and had to be back at 6am). So when I jumped on this morning after I got to work and saw that afremont had replied I figured I would fire another question out there.

Sounds like I will dive back into the taillights this afternoon. I will give cleaning all the terminals out a shot as I know some of them have a good amount of that random "goo" inside of them so hopefully that is the issue and then I will check the bulbs one by one again and post my results.

Lou, I pulled each bulb one at a time and then went back and pulled them in pairs (i.e. both turn signals, both brakes, both brake/running). And thanks for the compliment, being 25, I will admit I'm still a "kid," but just remember, even though the majority of my generation (especially the generation a bit younger than me) probably thinks literacy is a song by Kesha, there are a few of us that actually care

 

Oh I'm not worried about his use of the English language, which can be seen to be clear and used well, which is a refreshing change.

I was merely commenting on the time difference between his first and second post, in regards to the most likely reasons why there had been no replies. As you eluded to, many people, especially those that are young tend to want instantaneous replies forgetting that there has to be someone at the other end of the wires to actually type out a reply.

Forget the sockets themselves, I am very confident that your problem is not with the bulbs or sockets, but with a ground for the tail lights, all symptoms indicate this. The only time I've seen a bulb cause this, it was installed backwards, still not sure how that happened with an 1157, but as they say, make something more idiot proof, and someone will build a better idiot.

 

I picked up an 86 Z28 today and it has this issue. Since I have no history of this car I am going to replace all the bulbs and move on. I thought this was just some crazy glitch. I hope it is just bulbs. My car does have some creative wiring.

 

So random turn of events / update. Haven't had a chance to dive back into the wiring yet but the girl wanted to go for a spin the other night in the camaro so I threw everything back together and got in the car, hit the brake pedal...and nothing. No lights, no buzzer. So sixshooter, I'm guessing you hit the nail on the head and there is a loose ground. I'm guessing that all the moving of the harness wiggled it temporarily back into place. All I know is I'm not diving into the wiring until it starts acting up again. Thanks for everyone's help!

 

I take it that by "nothing" you meant that the brakes work as expected and do not cause side effects in other electrical circuits.

Hopefully you find the bad ground sooner or later. Driving around with it is definitely not a good thing, especially at night.
So keep us posted.

 

Yeah, everything was functioning properly. Running lights were not turning on when I would hit the brakes.

It doesn't get driven much at the moment as the exhaust is cut off before the cat. So once the snow sets in I will have plenty of time to chase the bad ground now that I know what is wrong.

 

FYI guys, I sell the bulbs for the Camaro HMSL (high mount stop light) for much less than GM or the auto parts store.

http://www.top-downsolutions.com/Bod...b-clear-20watt

Lon

 

Wow, thanks for the heads up. You're prices are awesome. Will have to be placing an order for you come the new year!