tail lights?

[whitefirebird96]

On the passenger side rear lights. The bulb closest to the center has a problem. The bulb works fine when I turn on my lights, but when I hit my brakes it goes off. I pulled the bulb and checked it, no broken filament. Tried the bulb in another socket, it worked. Tried a different, working bulb, in that socket, same problem. I pulled out the handy multimeter, and both connectors seem to read the same thing when the lights are on and the brakes are pressed. Any help would be great.

[Antman]

Dodgy Earth.
I had the same problem on my Drivers Side.

I suspect it's a breakdown of the earth wire to the socket. Having said that, it'll probably test fine with a meter (Found the same with one of my front fogs)

What happens is as the Earth point for the bulb is no longer sufficient for the current, the electricity finds the best possible route to earth. As the bulb is dual filament, the current grounds through the supply terminal for the brake filament (you'll notice that your brake light works fine when you don't have your lights on)

The reason the bulb goes out when you brake with your lights on, is because the whole bulb is at the same potential, and therefore, no current can flow.

Basically, the reason a bulb lights is because the two terminals are at different 'potential' - hence the term 'potential difference'

[LwnGy83]

I'm having the same problem... so Antman, all you really did was explain why it's not working, but you didn't say how to fix it... if you could tell us, that'd be great. Thanks man

[Antman]

Sorry guys.
On mine, it turned out to be a problem with the bulb holder itself.
Now, I can't just pop down to the local salvage yard to get one (cos F-Bodies are pretty rare here), so I spliced a wire into the Earth connection and soldered it to the outer part of the holder (that the bulb grounds through).
No more problems.

If I were you guys, best thing would be to get a replacement bulb holder.

[LwnGy83]

Thanks man... I was thinking of doing that, but I just haven't gotten around to it. (story of my life ;)

[whitefirebird96]

Would it be easier to get the light socket from a junkyard, or are they not that expensive to get from GM?

[FunkZ]

Had the same problem with one of mine. One of the replacement taillight assemblies I got from a salvage yard had all the sockets still in it (they had just cut the wires) so I ended up splicing in one of those. After another one went I took a closer look at it and determined it was just corroded contacts. A little bit of sandpaper inside the socket fixed it right up.

[red01maro]

I had the same problem 96 firebird. Mine turned out to be the black ground wire that goes into the socket. I think it was corroded, I pulled the rubber seal out of it, sprayed wd-40 in it, let it soak for a minute to break up the corrosion, worked it around a bit and it works fine now. Had two seperate sockets do it.