Hey all. Been quite some time but got my 87 Iroc back on the road after 6 years and another 5 or so of just not driving it all that often. Just did not work with babies and small children. Anyway ... running well and needs some work here and there. While driving last night, I noticed that my brake lights did not seem all that bright so I jumped out and checked. Seems like, if I have the lights off and hit the brakes I do get a light. If I have the lights on then I get no brake light. Reverse and hazards work fine. Fuses look good. The only thing that I know got messed up was the yellow wire for the contact plate for the third brake light on the spoiler. That is not coming on either. I tried moving that yellow wire into all 4 available positions in the harness but no joy. It looks like there are only two wires to that connection harness ... a black (all the way to the right) and the yellow. I guess I should mention that the harness is accessible once you remove the back trunk panel.

1. can anyone tell me which slot the yellow wire SHOULD go to?
2. Any ideas on why my brake lights are not coming on brighter when I hit the brakes with the lights on?

I am not terribly comfortable driving it until I get this figured out.

Thanks in advance.

 

OK. After some digging around and playing, I fixed the third brake light. Can't believe I had some bulbs laying around (from a microscope) that fit. So now I have a third brake light that works all of the time and taillights that light up when I hit the brakes only if the headlights are off. That means I fixed the yellow wire and contacts below and on the trunk lid. So, my question now is ... is this actually normal behavior? I never drove behind myself before (lol) and don't recall ever noticing when I drove behind another Camaro. I think there is a local cruise'in night tomorrow so maybe I will get lucky and find another third gen there I can inspect.

 

No, that's not normal. ALL the brake lamps should light brightly whenever the brakes are applied; whether the headlights are on or not has no bearing on this.

Whenever lights start acting oddly, usually the best first place to start looking is in the grounding of the lamp sockets. Also, remove the bulbs and look inside the sockets for corrosion/rust, etc. Try substituting known good bulbs for those now in the car.

 

Thanks Iron. Would both sides not work correctly if only bulb was not playing nicely? I can't imagine the grounding is an issue if the third light is working properly. I guess I need to take the trunk apart again.

 

The contacts get corroded I've found many that simply reseating the bulbs help. A single bad bulb will not make the others fail (parallel not series wiring). I would check to see with a known good test light at the rear harness then check the switch on the pedal.

The switch on the break pedal I believe it has two mechanical switches built into it one for the primary brake lights and one for the third brake light. This is for redundancy. Its the same switch but internally separate wires/contacts.