Short story i come home, go back out and get pulled over. Tail light out i said no way and got out and looked. go home and start searching, replaced the hack job of PO. *crappy wired in pig tail* start probing and i have brake lights but no tail light ? replaced the bulb,cleaned out the socket, checked fuses, wiring hardness ......... 86 pickup....even checked the pins and plugs and pulled the tail lights from my 89 all work but that 1 tail light. only brake ....

searched some of the other threads but nothing that seems to solve the problem.

 

Not really sure what the problem is without being able to look and trace myself but to keep you from being pulled over again you can run a temporary jumper from the tail light wire on the other side.
Just a thought to help keep from getting a ticket

 

i already started on that. thanx for the idea booster.

 

no promlem

 

Do you have voltage to the socket?

I have seen corroded sockets cause this problem causing a bad ground!!

 

Has power but it fades off, and wont power a bulb so im thinking it's the socket. looks a lil rusty. So i mounted 2 lights on the frame rail, clipped them into the tail light on the drivers side. Thought about cutting out the socket and putting in another light and seal it back up.

 

you can always find a new socket and wire it in

 

i've got 3 tail lights for now. so j law wont bother me, i found another socket just haven't put it in,

 

Saw no reason to start another thread. I changed bumpers. unplugged the wiring from the tail lights moved everything outta then way. cut off the welds from the po who installed the big shiny diamond plate bumper. no i have tail lights, that's just with the switch on, crank up the truck turn it back on, i still have them but this time no brake lights. Unless i turn off the switch then i have brake lights.. this is starting to be a PITA:


when the hardness comes out pass the gas tank. which wires are for the brake lights? green with blue stripe and green with red dash? it works fine as long as the switch is off but does me no good at night time as i can't trigger the brakes now. if i can tie into the brake light wiring i'll just run a separate set of lights.

 

update: being pissed is fun but doesn't always fix the problem. went back out and rewired the whole drivers side hardness, with the one from my 89. tail lights are brighter than the passenger side. had a buddy come watch while i hit the brake with the tail lights on, and viola you can see it flicker enough to know im braking from at least 10ft back. ...

 

i had this same problem on my 88 toyota pickup i just ran a seperate ground wire to both sides and ran it all the way up to the front because the p/o was rough on the truck hauling one ton of scrap metal down I-5 in seattle every day i basically ran new wires for all the lights now they are nice and brightnow i just need to find a five speedby the way 90percent of electrical problems are caused by bad ground