Rear of car-- Pass. side all lights work ( running , stop,turn ) On drivers side all i get is running lights ( have switched bulb from pass to drivers side and problem still exists so not bulb problem) any help would be appreciated.
Also, the earlier taillight sockets tend to get the wires smashed by junk in the trunk flying around during "overexuberant" driving. Did that a lot in the white Comet that I had while in my 20s ... I think I switched all of them in that car out. Later sockets were better protected.
Fuses? Grounds? Wires? Sockets? Get a Meter and track it down. Remember Bro...these cars are 40 years old, thats Hell on an electrical system. That is why I broke my 73 all the way down, part by part, to bare metal. I will replace the electrical system with a new one, from scatch. Just sayin. I would also get a schematic to find out what feeds what.
thank you Resto. But where do you find a wiring schematic. I checked Chilton & Haynes Manuals and maverick does not exist. I work for a GM & Ford parts distributor.
Does All-Data or Mitchell On Demand go back that far? They generally have some pretty good wiring diagrams. Bobo
the driving light or running lights as you called them are run off of one wire for both sides comeing from the dash to the tail lights. the turn signals and the brakes use a single wire for each side and come from your turn signal switch in the steering colum (darn can't spell worth a ?) running down the driver side under the door sill plate and behind the rear seat arm rest then go over the rear wheel well and up to the light sockets. check for power at the socket on either contact in the socket with the turn signals on. if you get that then you would have a ground problem if not search the wires back to the dash looking for a cracked insulation or broken wire. i think there is a plug in connector behind the front kick panel in front of the drivers door up high. ps to test your meter ground check it with the runnng lights on at the socket first dont touch the side of the socket with the meter leads or you well blow the fuse
With cars this old, sometimes just cleaning the connections inside the sockets where the bulbs touch really helps, along with cleaning up ground connections, too. The electrical connections were a lot more primitive than modern stuff ... a copper pad on a spring ... clean the tarnish off. If the car had had some paint touched up where a ground is screwed to it, you want good contact to a little bit of bare metal. Scrape a little bit of the paint back that would be covered by the ground fitting. Just in general, cleaning all the bigger grounds in an old car is good practice, and I mean, the engine grounds, on out.... clean and snugged up well. The grounds are how half of the electricity in use (except for the motor itself) travels through the car body and completes all the circuits back to the battery. Grounds are almost always a culprit if, when applying the brakes, while a turn signal is on, and they malfunction, sometimes one goes out and the other extra-bright.
