Tail light mystery issue

[stockk5]

Hey guys, well I have quite the wierd and extremely frustrating issue. I Had to cut my tail light wires right before my gas tank on the frame, Somewhere in the middle of the tank they were rotted and bad, so my lights were always going out bla bla bla. anyways, i run new wires to the tail light and wire them back up the same way. Brown to brown, light green to light green, dark green to dark green, and yellow to yellow. Well they all seem to work great except for one problem.

When I have the brakes on and turn on the right blinker then shut off right blinker while still on the brake.. the LEFT brake light goes out. However, as soon as you turn on the left blinker for a half second the brake light comes back on. It is so insanely frustrating. Another odd thing is when the right blinker is on you can see some voltage drop in the left brake light everytime the right blinks.

Any advice would be awesome, i am no wiring expert at all. My brother says maybe the blinker relay in the colum? thanks guys!

 

[K85 Octane]

sounds like you have a marker/blinker wire mixed up with a blinker/stop wire.

they use each other as ground, when blinking separate
maybe

go back through everything and make sure you don't have trailer wiring messing it up too

 

[stockk5]

yeah this is the frustrating part about all of this.. i dont have a trailer wire or anything. I have yellow to yellow, brown to both browns, green to both greens and light green to both light greens.. i've torn it apart and re-wired it about 10times now mixxing all sorts of wire cominbations thinking wtf is going on w/ it and put it back to the original wire colors. Does anyone know which wire is what??

 

[lectric80]

Light green is backup lights, brown is park lights, and yellow and green are the stop/turn lights. Have you pulled out the entire housing and checked the grounds? That is the first thing I think of with this.

 

[4X4HIGH]

How did you "splice" the new wire in? The best thing would be to solder and heat shrink everything. If you've used butt connectors those sometimes don't make a good contact and can give you troubles and the worst is those little blue colored clamp thingamajiggies.

 

[stockk5]

yeah i used butt connectors that have a heat shrink part on either end. What confuses me is why is there one bright yellow wire on the left side male part of the plug but up to the lights there is no yellow, only brown, light green and dark green.

 

[lectric80]

The sockets themselves do not have the same color coding that the main feed wires do. The dark green is the stop/turn wire.

 

[Fordum]

Does this help?

 

[Fordum]

Like lectric80 said, the Dark Green is the stop/turn wire. But, its the Right stop/turn wire, and it is yellow from the plug to the light.
It is NOT the same yellow in the main harness.

The yellow in the main harness, is the Left stop/turn light, and it stays yellow all the way.

 

[stockk5]

Does this help?

it would if i could afford a membership again dohhhthanks for all the quick replys everyone

for some reason mine doesnt have pure yellow all the way up to the actual bulb socket on the left side, just green, light green and brown, same for both sides.

 

[lectric80]

Mine was exactly that way when I rewired it a couple years ago. Granted my rewire also relocated the wiring to the inside of the Blazer, I dislike having wiring under the truck. Both sockets have the same color wires, only the main harness wires differ in color.

 

[stockk5]

wellll both grounds in both lights were extremely rusted and bad so i cleaned all those and replaced them. The driver brake light is STILL going out when you shut off the passanger blinker and the brake lights are on. However when the passanger blinker is on and brakes are on you can see some draw in the driver brake light as it blinks. So once you shut off the passanger blinker with the brakes still on and then simply put pressure on the blinker lever the brake light goes on again.... i think its in my colum switch.

This might be confusing how im saying this, just typed it quick so if anyone needs clarifying let me know.

 

[lectric80]

Not confusing, I think you are right. I recommend grounds first always, they tend to cause the most issues. All brake/turn signals run through the column turn signal switch, so I think at this point that is where I would focus.

 

[Fordum]

Yep, if putting pressure on the lever turns the brake light back on, then its almost certainly the switch.

I have repaired those on other vehicles but it was a case of not being able to find a replacement.

In your case, you should be able to find one in the junkyard if nowhere else.

 

[stockk5]

how much of a b$tch is it to fix that?

 

[lectric80]

The switch itself isn't too bad, the hardest part is getting the wires snaked through the column. Basically you have to remove the steering wheel, disconnect the wires down on the column, carefully pull the wiring and switch out, then snake the new one back in and re-assemble.