The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Panels 'N Burbs Suburban rear lights

I would like to install after market turn-signals on my 1950 Suburban. Where do the turn-signal wires go? I can't seem to find a way of routing the wires from the rear to the front of the vehicle without being seen.

Anton

I routed the wires on my 49 sub back to the bullet tail lights along the upper sides above the side windows before I installed the headliner. The wires will lay in the trough formed by the metal above the windows.

Weeds

One way of routing the directional signal wires in Advance-Design Suburbans are shown in these GM installation instructions.

Turn signals were not required by law until some years later and therefore were not often installed by the factory.

From what I've seen I believe the factory routing would be under the truck along with the brake and tail light wiring.

However, I don't like wires underneath in the weather so I ran mine above the windows like Weeds described.

I think that dual rear lamps were required by law in a few states during Advance-Design years (I think that Washington state is/was one example).

That is one reason why GM provided the Panel-body dual tail lamp accessory in all Advance-Design years (it was an easy matter to mount a second tail lamp on other trucks). In 1954, the dual lamp (front and rear) directional-signal package became available as a GM accessory on all Chevrolet trucks (the wiring diagram/routing for Panel-body trucks is given at the link at the post above).

I have two 1954/55 GM trucks (that coincidentally came from WA) that had factory directional signals with original wiring run along the frame, under the body. The signal systems worked fine after 50+ years (Note: plastic-coated wire came into use in 1954 - I doubt if the cloth-coated wiring would have lasted that long). The plastic coating was quite brittle and when I removed them they broke/cracked all over the place on the wires that ran to the rear lamps.

That's interesting.

None of the Suburbans or panels I've bought has had the dual tail light arrangement though a couple of them have had the '39 Chevy lights on the sides.

Amusing to me is that its the '48 and the '51 that came with those lights, the '53 and '55 1st did not come with them. These are the trucks I own or have owned, not a general statement about what GM was building at the time.

My driver Suburban which probably did not start out in Washington does not have the factory turn signal switch, though my other two '54/'55 GMC's and a '55 1st Chevy I parted out, all did.

Of course none of these trucks were made here in Washington, since the nearest plant was Oakland California at the time.

The '39 Chevy lights might have been the panel-body dual rear-lamp option (RPO 249, available 47-55).

The 47-55 Panel body GM (RPO 249) dual tail and stop lamp equipment was/is the same style of lamps as shown in the installation pages for 54/55 panel-body signals at the link above (see page 10).

You guys are awesome. Thanks for the info and ideas.
Anton

39 tail lights for sale here
http://www.reidsrodparts.com/ELEC3.html