Stop Lamp Troubleshooting

[dcolli46]

Hey everybody, just got an '82 BRAT about a month ago and so I am new to the forum!

 

I have been trying to find out why my stop lamp light is on. A couple weird things are happening:

 

When the running lights are off, the stop lamp light is off until I press on the brakes then it goes on. Both filaments in the brake light bulb go on, and the front corner lights and dash lights also light up and the clock dims.

 

When the running lights are on, the stop lamp light remains on until I hit the brakes. When i hit the brake pedal the stop lamp light turns off and there is very little difference between the brightness of the brake lights and the running lights because, again, both filaments are lit up when the running lights are on.

 

All of my lights do work, so I'm lost as to what the issue could be. Any ideas?? Thanks for the input!

 

David

[naru]

Probably a bad ground at the tailights.

Test by running a wire from battery - to the talight ground.

[Cougar]

Welcome to the forum.

 

The trouble you are having is most likely due to one of the brake light bulb filaments is touching the running light filaments inside one of the bulbs. This kind of trouble is fairly common. When the brake is pressed voltage gets backfed through the filaments of the crossed running light to the instrument lighting circuit. Remove a brake light from one side and see if the other side works ok then. If there is still a problem then the one left installed should be the bad one.

Edited May 7, 2010 by Cougar

[dcolli46]

Sweet, checked each bulb individually and found out the passenger side bulb was the culprit. Changed it and everything is back to normal. Thanks guys

[Cougar]

You're welcome for the help. Glad to hear you fixed it and thanks for the feedback.