1952 1/2 ton Tail lights

[wildfifty2]

My 52 sat in a barn for over 20 years... All of the lights on the truck were broken so I am replacing them all. I have aftermarket turn signals on the truck so there are 3 wires to each rear tail light. I am assuming a tail light wire. a brake light wire and a turn signal wire. The tail light assembly has two wires coming out of it... Can I wire the brake light and turn signal to the same wire? and hook the tail light wire to the other? Thanks


ps... I will be replacing all of the wires before hooking them up but I just want to make sure I understand the hook up before I start cutting..

[mr48chev]

You can do it "if" you have a turn signal switch that has the stop light wire running to it from the stop light switch.

Otherwise you will need separate turn lights. This is why almost all older trucks that haven't got updated turn signal switches or steering columns with built in turn signal switches have separate turn signals both front and rear.
The stock park lights only have a single element bulb but I put sockets for double element bulbs in mine years ago.

Now my question is what are you using for a turn signal switch?

I'll see if I can dig up a wiring diagram for the tail lights that is sim

[wildfifty2]

Thanks for the info... I just replaced the turn signal switch last week since the old one looked terrible.. The new one has a red wire that I wired to the brake light switch per the diagram. I also installed the double element front park lights to use as turn signals... that brings up another question?? Does the front park light lens now have to be amber to be legal as a turn signal? Thanks again!

Originally Posted by mr48chev

You can do it "if" you have a turn signal switch that has the stop light wire running to it from the stop light switch.

Otherwise you will need separate turn lights. This is why almost all older trucks that haven't got updated turn signal switches or steering columns with built in turn signal switches have separate turn signals both front and rear.
The stock park lights only have a single element bulb but I put sockets for double element bulbs in mine years ago.

Now my question is what are you using for a turn signal switch?

I'll see if I can dig up a wiring diagram for the tail lights that is sim

[mr48chev]

This is the one for my 71 GMC so you will have to eliminate the extra stuff in your brain while you are looking at it. It's quite simple and gives you the color codes if you want to stay color coded.


This is just a simple wiring diagram that is somewhat universal.


Color coding the wires per GM:
Brown = Tail lights
Yellow = stop/left turn
green = stop.right turn

If you don't have the wire already the easy way to do it is buy a roll of "trailer taillight wire" a 25 ft roll isn't too expensive and comes in three or five wire versions so you can run the whole harness from the switch to the lights.
If you have separate turn lights 5 wire would give you all of the wires you need and make a clean looking harness. That way you would have a wire for stop, one for tail a separate one for left turn and separate one for right turn and one left over that could be for backup lights if you wanted to put them on.

[wildfifty2]

Cool... Thanks for the info!

Originally Posted by mr48chev

This is the one for my 71 GMC so you will have to eliminate the extra stuff in your brain while you are looking at it. It's quite simple and gives you the color codes if you want to stay color coded.


This is just a simple wiring diagram that is somewhat universal.


Color coding the wires per GM:
Brown = Tail lights
Yellow = stop/left turn
green = stop.right turn

If you don't have the wire already the easy way to do it is buy a roll of "trailer taillight wire" a 25 ft roll isn't too expensive and comes in three or five wire versions so you can run the whole harness from the switch to the lights.
If you have separate turn lights 5 wire would give you all of the wires you need and make a clean looking harness. That way you would have a wire for stop, one for tail a separate one for left turn and separate one for right turn and one left over that could be for backup lights if you wanted to put them on.