Chasing electrical gremlins

Since I am still fighting with the carburetor I decided to do something that would actually make some forward progress.  Lighting on the car is not working very well at all.  Taillights are not working and only one front indicator light is working (intermittently).  So I figured I would do some troubleshooting on that.

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Here is the front marker light that is not working at all.  First I reverse probed the connector and found I was getting voltage.  That means we are either getting a bad ground or a bad bulb.  So I tried to take the bulb out.  No joy.  So I took the whole light off.

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This picture shows the parts of the marker light  That spring clip holds the lens in against the gasket in the body of the light.  The bulb was frozen in there.  I had to break the bulb and use pliers to get the socket out.  Now I will need to find an amber 1034 bulb (I think that is a 1034A).

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This light was pretty rusty so I cleaned, wire-brushed, and masked it.  I then shot it with silver spray paint.  Which is not the original chrome but is a lot cheaper.

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The light on the other side was less rusty but only worked intermittently.  The steel bulb socket was loose and not making good contact.  It will have to be tightened up.

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I worked out this rig for getting the socket tight.  The wrench fits fairly tightly around the base of the socket.  The ball-peen hammer round end fits pretty well in the socket.  I tapped the top of the hammer a couple of times (with a bigger hammer) and the socket is tight again.

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The lights are working again.  I used a normal 1034 bulb on the driver’s side so it is not yellow.  I probably will replace both of these bulbs with LED’s at some point.  On to the back!

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I hooked up a multimeter to see what we had back here.  With the lights on I saw 12V on the taillight, nothing on the backup light, and oddly 6V on the brake light.  Let me check the other side.

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This is weird.  When I took the lens off the bulb was glowing faintly.  Now I know why the battery goes dead when I leave it hooked up.  This will take some investigating.  But both buckets are dirty and corroded.  So I am going to pull them out.

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Look at this fresh hell.  The wire nut is an especially nice touch.  There is also a lot of debris in there.  I cleaned up both buckets and the inside of the fender with wire brushes and a vacuum.  But it is getting really hot out in the garage so I went inside to clean up the lenses.

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So this is not good.  This metal disk is supposed to be a reflector.  Not so much any more.

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Once I cleaned the rust off I painted the disks with rust encapsulating paint.

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I have this aluminum tape designed for sealing heating ducts.  I cut out circles and shaped them to fit.  They are certainly shiny and the tape seems to stick well.  Time will tell.   I braved the heat  to go out and buy some new screws to hold the lenses on.  I got stainless ones.  I also ordered new gaskets for the taillights and lenses.

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