The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay 2 wire taillight help please!

Hello everyone I am a new user on here and proud owner of a recently purchased running 57 chevy 3100. A lot of work need to be done on it, but need the lights to work in order to drive it to and back from my buddy's shop.

Headlights work, one is always on until you hit the dimmer then both turn on, is this normal?

Just hooked up the parking lights, one wire coming from the headlight harness. There were two wired on the actual new parking light. One green, one black. To my surprise the black one was the hot one an the green had to be grounded onto the inner fender. Is this correct?

Went to install the back lights (two wired), mind you they haven't been mounted onto anything yet. I hooked up one wire to whatever was left from the old wiring and the second wire I grounded to the frame. The light works, both on the first and second position on the light switch. I hit the brakes and nothing changed, turns out the white wire and red wire weren't hooked onto the brake switch located under the firewall. I hooked them up and still nothing changed, not even a flicker? Would it help to mount the light onto the frame or bed in order for it to work correctly?

One more thing, on my gauges, what does the little red light mean? It's on...

Some confusion here. Green is for the head light Hi beam. Tan is the low beam. Natural/white is the brake light and black is the tail light. Check the link for "Old Online Chevy Manuals" and follow the wiring diagram. Should at least get you started.

The parking lights I bought came with a green/teal and black wire.
The taillights came with a black and white wire.

I believe that red light above the speedometer indicates that the lights are "on".

The tail and front lights ground through the light housing. The two wires on the front lights are park and turn and the two wires on the rear lights are for brake and tail. You must have the housings grounded good for them to work. You may need an extra ground strap from the bed to frame because of 50+ years of corrosion in the original mount bolts.

Both headlights should burn in both positions. You could have a burned out low beam on one side.

The red indicator is for high beams.

Cletis, thank you so much. I'm gonna tinker around with it for a bit this weekend. I'll keep you guys posted!

Also I don't have any turn signals on this truck. My best guess as to why there is only one wire going to the parking lights? So instead of grounding my parking lights with the green wire, should I just not connect it to anything?

When you use the green light for ground you are sending power to both filaments of the bulb. Since you don't have turnsignals you need to terminate that wire and save it for later. Install the housing in the truck so you'll have a ground to it. Then try each wire with the light wire to determine which you need. Use the dim one and tie off the bright one.

Sounds like a plan, thank you!

where you at in Texass... you should consider going to the welcome forum and introduce your self, we would like to know more about you..we also have a place for guys in Texas to chime in..

So I got the parking lights figured out, only needed the black wire for the dimmer light, green wire is for when I add turn signals. Great!

Taillight is almost figured out as well. I've got it hooked up to where the dimmer bulb lights up when the light switch is pulled out on the first and second spot. When I hook up the second wire which is supposed to be the brighter stop light, it stays bright the whole time it is on. Not sure what's going on, would like to have a running and stop light. I have two wires coming from the harness to the back. I have two wires hooking up to the brake switch and tried them two different ways (switch the posts hooked up). I have a running light, but no stop light. Help!

Maybe I need a new brake switch?

Do you have a multimeter? You need one to check the operation of the switch.

No I don't. Maybe I could take the wires off and bypass with a bridging wire to see if the brake lights turn on and off that way. If they do, maybe I have a bad switch?

Is the arm on the stop switch?

Yes it is.

That's what I don't understand, mos people that have problems with the brake switch say it won't activate the stop light, I'm the complete opposite. I want the brake light to turn off, unless I'm hitting the brake of course.

As the brake pedal reaches the top rest position, you should hear a click from the brake switch as it turns off. Most of these trucks have a brake pedal that is higher than the clutch. Trying to adjust it down can cause the the brake switch to stay on.