I just bought a 91 4runner. It's my first vehicle. I bought it knowing I'd need to replace a few lights, but I've been testing them and everything seems to work, except my driver's side tail light.

The turn signal works, and the red light comes on when I have the parking lights on, but not when I have the brakes held in. I removed both tail lights (the whole unit) and switched sides and the problem stayed on the driver's side - so the problem is not with the tail light, but with the wiring or something. I haven't got into the fuses yet, just because I didn't think that the lower bulb would have a separate fuse for it's parking light and brake light. Let me know if I'm wrong.

I tried searching for a solution but didn't find anything that matched my problem. Where do you think I should start to try to fix this?

Thanks a ton!

 

So, I haven't been able to figure it out yet - but I did get an idea that I'm going with until I can figure it out.

I grabbed some wire that I had, it looked like the same gauge as the wire run for the tail light. I ran the wire from the working brake light to the non functioning brake light.

Because brake lights never need one side to be light without the other, and because (I believe) they are on the same circuit anyway (so no extra stress to the system) I just striped the ends of the wire, twisted the ends, and flattened the end as well as I could. I then pushed the wire into the back of the brake light plugs for both lights, and connected them. So - power goes to the working light, then the power continues to the otherwise non functioning light. Now they both work. I would have soldered the wires, but I still plan to try to get the real problem solved and don't want to do any cutting or soldering unless I give up. I ran the wire under the piece of plastic screwed in at the end of the 4runner, right by the tail gate.

Is there anything potentially dangerous about this, other than maybe the wire coming out on the road and my passenger side brake light not working until I notice it and fix it?