electrical problems on a ford

[Swims350]

ok my brother in law has a 97 f150 with taillight problems.

turn signals, bake lights, reverse lights all work fine

2 bubls only, one for reverse only the other for brake.turn/park.

park doesn't work out back, fronts work, all the rest work no park lights in backl.

We messed with it today checking connections, had them working for a minute and put the lights back in and shut the tailgate, and no lights.

Worked on a plugin under the DS tailights, had power going to that connector but none at the bulb.

so we tried to skin it back before the connector, leaving it attached to the connector, and wire in a piece of wire from it to the other side of the connector, thus bypassing the pins inside the connector for it.

Nothing, as soon as you would plugin the connector you'd lose power to that wire, completely, with it unplugged it had power fine.

So we figured ground, we found the ground wire, did the same skin trick to it, and grouned it bypassing the connector, although when plugged back in the connector supposedly hooked them together and we had our splice on it to which makes double connections for both the park light hot and ground.

Well this did the same, plug in the connector, loose all power, unplug it and check and both the ground wire and the hot had POWER!!!!!!!!!! they would both light the test light up like power was feeding back thru the ground wire.

unhook it from one side or the other or the hot and it would not send power across to both hot and ground, if we unhooked the ground splice then only the hot had power on both sides of the connector with the connector unhooked.

Now with the hot splice unhooked and the ground splice hooked up, connector unhooked, nothing had power.


I think the ground is getting power fed back thru or bad ground casuing this issue, anyone else's thoughts? We are gonna try and work on it more tomorrow when he gets in from work.

 

[bucket]

I started getting confused toward the end of your post, as to what exactly you were doing. BUT, I've replaced countless bulb sockets on Furd tail lights over the years. The socket plugs into the harness, right? We just get new ones from the dealer. If aftermarket are available, I don't recommend them. They often come with new light assemblies and they are garbage usually.

 

[Swims350]

no you have a bulb socket, then a harness about a foot or so long, then a plugin/connector down under the truck, to unhook that harness and bulb socket.

Anytime the connector under the truck is hooked up the parklight looses power, to the wire going into or feeding the connector.

Well we tried to splice it over and it didn't help, sae for the ground, with it's own ground and power hooked up and the plugin not together they still would not light. Now with the power and ground hooked up not thru the connector then power would feed back thru the ground, so you could test light the hot and it light up the test light, you could poke the ground and get the same.

Power wire was brown on both sides, factory color and then the ground was black on both sides, we wires straight across color to color.

 

[bucket]

Huh, odd. I don't remember ever seeing a modern Ford that didn't have a socket with a plug right on it. Is one socket green and the other brown/tan?

 

[Swims350]

we got it, big 10 ga. ground wire up on the frame near the connector, wiggle it and they worked fo a bit then stopped, was working last night and this morning then stopped, going to reground that wire and see if that doesn't permanently fix it.

On a side note the rusty spare tire is now out of the way, and has like 2 small pieces of metal that wee holding the entire thing up, and the frame has been double plated over and bolted thru due to rust, IMO I'd have ran away after seeing that crap.

At least they used thick plates like 1/4 almost.