I am experiencing problems with my brake and turn signal on the right rear side on my 69' Firebird.

Here's the exact problem:
- All of my lights seem to work great, EXCEPT for the right rear taillight and right rear turn signal. Now, if I turn the headlights, the right rear taillight will light up, but even though it lights up, the right rear taillight still does tight-up when the brake is applied and the turn signal also doesn't work on the right rear taillight.

I have ordered a rear wiring harness from Ames Performance, replaced it and no luck.
I then replaced both turn signal flashers (Part# 552) and that didn't fix the problem.
I also swapped out the light bulbs from right to left and that didn't work.
Checked my fuses, but they are not blown.

At this point I am not sure what to check or replace next.

Any help or advice you can provide would be great.

Craig

My first guess would be a bad ground, but I'm not sure if the individual rear lights use a seperate ground for the left and right.

You're going to have to use a meter and track the voltage from the source to the loads and see where it's lost.

If you can track the ground wire for that side run a temporary wire to the battery ground and see if they work, if they do, it's a ground problem.

Yes, check the ground first because it is a likely solution plus easiest and cheapest to fix. If that fails, it may be the turn signal switch in the column.

I had a similar problem a few years ago. I had somehow installed a taillight bulb (#1157) into the backup light socket which gets the #1156 bulb. The bulbs and sockets are mistake-proofed so technically it should not be possible, but I did it. Double check that your taillight bulbs are #1157 and your backup light bulb is #1156. If that's not the problem, then I'm with the others regarding the grounding.

Thanks to everyone for the guidance, but didn't have any luck getting my right rear brake light to work or the right rear turn signal.

Using your suggestions, I checked the following items:

1) I verified that I have 1156 bulbs in the backup sockets and the others have 1157's in the others. Everything is solid.

2) Checked the single black ground wire on the rear harness (the one located on the truck latch support). Again, it a new harness from Ames and it's attached to the same place that the factory harness was attached. I even used a Dremel tool to clean any paint, rust or debris off the surface before attaching the ground. I can't find any other grounds to the rear harness anywhere. If there's something else I'm missing, please help me out.

3) I ran a wire from the negative battery terminal to the single ground wire on the truck latch - no luck. Then also tried to make contact against the taillight housing, in case it was the actual ground to the car body..no luck either.

4) Lastly, after all else failed, I unscrewed the black ground wire on the rear wiring harness to see if that would effect the light situation, but it didn't. The light still worked the same even though it was disconnected.

I guess I'm going to need to get another volt meter so I can start checking things out further.

Not positive, but I think each socket grounds to the taillight housing via the metal tang on the socket. If so, it's worth a check to make sure those sockets are grounding properly to the taillight housing. When you get it figured out, let us know what the issue was.

Drum roll..........IT'S FIXED !!!! I now have a right rear brake light, right rear turn signal and hazard lights too.

Well, I hooked-up with a buddy who installs lights and sirens in police cars and got some assistance. He and a coworker jumped on the vehicle at once. After testing the rear lights, ensuring the grounds were all good, they traced the wiring harness from the trunk through the intermediate harness to the fuse box and by accident touched the blade connecter at the base of the steering wheel when the right rear turn signal suddenly cam on. They then disconnected it, cleaned all of the pins gently with a wire brush and then slapped some Di-electric grease on it. Problem solved. Man, what a rough road to get here. Over the years, I've replaced countless light bulbs as well as the rear wiring harness. All in all, I'm sure the rear wiring harness was going to go out anyway, so no big deal.

Thanks First Generation Firebird members for all of your help. Hopefully this information will assist anyone else who may have a similar issue.

I just purchase a set of Year One Pontiac Rally II wheels, so I'm now looking for some 17" redline tires. Thinking about the BF Goodrich Silvertown redline tires in a 225/55/17". I've read a post or two where some folks had trouble getting them to balance. Anyone experience that on the BF Goodrich redlines?

Hi Craig, glad to hear the problem is solved. Can you be more specific about "touched the blade connecter at the base of the steering wheel"? I'm not really clear on this.

The wiring harnesses are getting very old now. Time to recommend changing to new wiring if problems exist.

Mark, sorry for the confusion. I was referring to the steering column flat wiring harness which i believe connects to the dash harness. It was amazing because my friends accidentally touched the steering wheel harness and the turn signals just started working. Thank goodness it’s solved.