brake light

[stumpbuster]

symptoms: my (driver side tail light) BLINKER and BRAKE LIGHT does not work.

but the light bulb DOES alluminate when, and only when the lights are turned on.

so it was weird for me to diagnose this when i thought i was merely changing out a a blown tail light bulb.

its never that easy

so its not the bulb obviously, what to check for please

 

[stumpbuster]

also for what its worth, i just remembered when i turn my headlights on, my gas gage stops working

LOL


what???
LOL

 

[diesel4me]

What year truck??---if its 88 or newer,chances are it might be the printed curcuit board in the tail lamp assemble is corroded & junk--common on those...parts stores sell them mew in Doeman brand..

If its an older truck it could be a ground issue with the bulb socket,the gas gauge problem may or may not be related to the buld issue--that could be a bad ground too,and something in the dash is backfeeding ,using the gauge for ground perhaps..

 

[stumpbuster]

truck in my sig..


think it could be bulb socket due to my occurances described??

this is gunna be a pita, i can taste it

 

[Fordum]

Since that uses the double filament bulb, its not unusual for the turn signal and brake light to not work when the headlight does.
The turn and brake use the same filament and the headlight the other.

But, since changing it did not work, pull it back out and look at the two contacts in the socket. One of them might be corroded. If not, then its probably in the wiring. There should be a plug in the harness about in the middle of the back end where the left and right wiring harnesses tie into the main one running forward.
You might check to see if it is corroded.

Turn signal/brake light should be a yellow wire on the driver side, dark green on the passenger.

Also, make sure you did not put an 1156 bulb in instead of an 1157. The 1156 is a single filament and the single contact will fit right between the two contacts in the socket and tie them together.

All kinds of weird stuff will happen then.

The gas gauge is almost certainly a ground problem in the instrument cluster. Its getting its ground though a bulb somehow, and when you turn on the lights the ground goes away.

Could possibly be a chassis ground, but most likely at the cluster.

 

[diesel4me]

There is a black wire under the dash with a ring connector that anchors near the E-brake release and it often gets damaged--usually you lose all the dash cluster lights if uts not grounded good though,not just one gauge --its worth looking to see if its intact anyway..it could be the printed curcuit on the dash cluster has a poor connection or ground at the gauge too...

 

[stumpbuster]

wow thanks yall, gotta bunch of gr8 ideas now to pinpoint this weekend, ill keep ya posted and thanks so much for the hints