Hot Rods Need brake light help please

im redoing a 1960 Ford Starliner. My left brake light comes on bright when I turn the headlights on. But doesn’t work at all when I turn headlights off and hit the brake pedal. The right side works fine. Any help is appreciated. I hate electrical gremlins because I’m no electrician.

 

Those are two totally separate circuits, so you have a wire crossed somewhere. That wire to the light should go to the turn signal switch, it's not doing so now. You'll have to trace that back and find out where it's wrong.

 

You’ve got wiring problems. Problaly your tail light and brake light wires are crossed or touching each other.


Bones

 

First check that the bulb is in the right way (short & long locating pins in the right slots). Next, check your ground connection to the light fitting. It's usually a bad earth/ground which gives weird faults like this.

 

I had the contacts on the bulbs melt and touch so check the bulb first.

 

Wrong bulb, bulb in backwards, bad ground (most common problem)


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Well I found it. Fixed it. The reason is so stupid , I’m not sharing it, because my stupidity will probably get me kicked off here. Thanks for the input , boys. Appreciate you all.

 

We all have been there, done that...that is why we know what to suggest...in fairness to this forum we need to know what you found.


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I had the two wires in the wrong holes. AND THEY WERE MARKED. I’m making an eye doctor appointment tomorrow.

 

Happens...believe me


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I do stuff like that all the time.

 

If that was your worst mistake, you're doing a lot better than most of us!

 

It happens

 

Least you didn't have the right side wires in the left side holes!

 

It's all good. Everyone has been down the wrong path before. You learned .

 

I had a crossed wire on the rear of my '59 Ford, an easy fix but again, everything was marked and labeled. A bad bulb will have you talking to yourself too. It may look good but... I always try to have a couple of good old 1157 bulbs around that I KNOW are good to help diagnose what you describe.

 

I'm glad you posted the reason and cure. We all need occasional gentle reminders not to skip over the things "we know are right" when diagnosing our own problems. Sometimes it is hard to back off and treat our own problem like it was one brought to us by someone else.

 

I mentioned this before here. Go to Classiccarwiring.com and order a 11-1/2"x 17" laminated wiring diagram for your car. It shows everthing including the wire colors...

 

You passed the official H.A.M.B. initiation test and are welcomed into our brotherhood with open arms. If you haven't done it wrong - twice - and were insistent at first that you checked the easy stuff at the beginning, then you haven't really had the gearhead experience.