Tail light woes

[stangbring]

My tails and my brake lights were not working but my blinkers were (well both at the same time no matter which way I put them on).

S0, I rewired the rearend and the same thing is happening, BUT. When I lean on the left rear the lights come on, the harder I lean the more they come on. Seems that I have a ground problem. I am just not sure where?

My battery is grounded good and all my other lights and stereo and everything else works great.

I thought maybe the bed was not bolted on good, but it is, not sure what else to check.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Alan's Classic]

If i suspect a bad ground, I will take a jumper cables and use one cable for a temp ground to see if it works. If so I will install a permanate ground strap. good luck.

[jwart]

got a 65 had same problems. gound clean frame & engine grounds & also did same with ground strap to bed sheetmetal by rear bumper & ran good ground to both taillite buckets. i didn't like the stock taillites visibility- tried led lite bulbs i use on my harley but still not brite enough for the a** holes that drive around here. went to led taillites from classic parts
part#49-232lr & am very pleased & even getting comments on how brite they are. hope it helps
jw

[1966gmc]

I had the same problem on my 66. The ground on mine was gone. It is located on the left rear of the bed about 8-10 inches from the tail panel. Im finding it hard to explain where it is exactly but mine has a hacked up wiring harness anyway so mine could actually be out of place lol

[ol Curt]

You should give a shout out to Hilandr. He can probably provide some good insight on getting good grounds. I remember some of his earlier posts on the subject and he is a great guy to boot!

[ol Curt]

Sorry, I just realized hilandr is on another board, but a darn good electrician and all around good guy. Here is a quote from him...




* Quote:





Hi guys, I'm sorry I'm climbing on board so late, but I've been working 10 hour days. All good stuff here, but I really need to clear something up.

I can't stress enough the importance of the negative battery cable needing to terminate at the engine. That's where the starter and the alternator are attached so it's imperative that the path of least resistance lead from the engine straight to the battery. That's how the factory sets it up too. Everything else grounds from the engine out. It's not really a circle, think of it as a base where everything ties together.

Engine-to-Frame (at starter), Engine-to-Cab (at valve covers) cab-to-frame, frame-to-core support, frame-to-bed & bumper etc.
--The Hilander.

[protrash64]

I had many issues with my taillites also. The bulbs ground thru the housing into the bed. If any part works ok I would GUESS the ground is good. Have you changed your turn signal switch in the column? My old one was a mess of JB weld and I could get the lites to do different things by moving my turn signal switch back and forth int the housing.

I also cleaned the bulb sockets and made sure the mounting screws in the taillite buckets made clean contact with metal.