Dim tail stop light on right side

[damname101]

Recently i had an issue where there were no brake lights at all except for the tail lights which worked fine. I have been testing wires and voltage all day but no good. Suddenly the lights started working again. I now have brake lights again but on the drivers side they are very dim. when the headlights are on they are dimmer still. the passenger side lights are now working perfectly and very bright. i dont know what i did to get the brake lights working again but they are working.

again...on the drivers side the lights are very dim but on the passenger side they are very bright. i even replaced the bulbs with new bulbs. i have no idea except im guessing the left side has lower voltage. i think i measured 3.8v with the brake pedal pressed. bad connection? there is a plug that has 4 or 5 wires going into it and on the other side of the plug 3 wires come out and go to the left light.

i would just remove the connector and wire it directly but there is the issue of more wires going in than coming out.

can someone help me make sense of this please?

thanks

 

[Dan77CJ7]

I had that happen it was a slightly broken turn signal switch grounding, "I think!!" when i fixed it all the light issues went away? but i may have fixed it inadvertently. i hope this helps.

 

[damname101]

I had that happen it was a slightly broken turn signal switch grounding, "I think!!" when i fixed it all the light issues went away? but i may have fixed it inadvertently. i hope this helps.

thanks for the reply. can you shed some light on where the switch you fixed is located? thanks.

 

[Torxhead]

I think you should first check the ground connection. The taillights are grounded at the rear of the body and the current must travel all the way to the firewall where there is a connection to the battery negative, and steel is a poor conductor of electricity. The headlights are also grounded at the grille behind the right headlight on a black wire, at least on my '86 they are. You might first try to run a jumper wire from the battery negative to the taillight housing. If it gets brighter, then you know where that problem is, if not then it should be in the tailight wiring, plug or switch. Same with the headlight. A place to really start to work from is getting the battery voltage as a base gauge to see how much voltage you are losing. Like if your battery reads 3.8 volts you are doing just fine.

 

[damname101]

I think you should first check the ground connection. The taillights are grounded at the rear of the body and the current must travel all the way to the firewall where there is a connection to the battery negative, and steel is a poor conductor of electricity. The headlights are also grounded at the grille behind the right headlight on a black wire, at least on my '86 they are. You might first try to run a jumper wire from the battery negative to the taillight housing. If it gets brighter, then you know where that problem is, if not then it should be in the tailight wiring, plug or switch. Same with the headlight. A place to really start to work from is getting the battery voltage as a base gauge to see how much voltage you are losing. Like if your battery reads 3.8 volts you are doing just fine.

the housing to the tail light is plastic. there is a plate on the inside where red wires connect to. im assuming it positive. what i think im going to do is ground the negative to the bulb itself and see what happens. im not exactly sure which wire is the ground at the connector near the tail light. i did try to follow the wires but they dissapear into conduits. maybe the bolts themselves that bolt the fixture to the body are where it grounds?

the wires i have back there are:
green
green black
white
white black
and pink

the pink wire goes off to the fuel tank. the other 4 terminate into a plug connector and then on the other side turn into 3 wires. red, white and black.....which all go into the light fixture.

also...im noticing that the reverse light come on very dimmly when the brakes are pressed.

 

[Dan77CJ7]

under the steering wheel looks like a pretzel.....

 

[damname101]

under the steering wheel looks like a pretzel.....

1 wire in 1 wire out and looks like an old school glass fuse housing, tied in a knot and resembles a pretzel? i may have already messed with this today while trying to trace down the issue. if this is the switch...i unplugged it and plugged it back in....sometime after that the light did start working again.

 

[damname101]

FIXED!

As it turns out.... the 3 bolts inside the tail light that attaches the light to the body were the issue. well not exactly the bolts, but the body is rusted badly. inside the tail light there is a metal plate that 1 red wire connects to. this is the ground for the light. the bolts that go through the plate and attach to the body. they were not making good contact at all. there is a separate terminal on the left side of this plate that i attacked a ground to and then ran it through the conduit and grounded it under the jeep.

Light are brighter than ever and working properly.

Thanks everyone for your help and i hope this thread can help someone else along the line

 

[damname101]

NOT FIXED!!!

while the light are now brighter....the efkin brake light are out again....... they were working great after i ran the new ground but now they will not light up at all.

should i just ran a new power wire? there are 2 wires coming off the brake switch. pink and red w/black stripe. im thinking i can tap the pink and run it back to the lights. but which wire am i replacing? my choices are green, green black, white, white black. these wires terminate into a connector. from the connecter they then change to red, black and white...and then to the light fixture.