rvandeven

My '68 Cutlass is up and running. Working the bugs out.


My generator light is on all the time. The battery is charging. I have an extra wire. I attached a picture. Was wondering where the heck this plugs in, I think it will solve my gen light issue.


Thanks!

oldcutlass

I think that's the wire that goes on the proportioning valve for the brake warning light. Reseat your voltage regulator plug, the brown wire from it goes to the gen light.

rvandeven

I installed a disk brake conversion kit, and it included a new proportioning valve and plug. So that is not what it is.

The car did have an aftermarket under the dash A/C that I removed. Could this plug have been part of that system?

Regarding the voltage regulator - I am also having issues with my blinkers, and the dash and marker lights all light up when I hit my brakes. Since I have the problem with the Gen warning light, could I have plugged up the voltage regulator incorrectly?

As always, thanks for the replies.

jaunty75

I had a sort of a similar problem with my '73 Custom Cruiser. When I turned the headlights on, the right-side turn signal indicator on the dash would light up and stay lit. Turn signals worked OK. It turned out that the socket for the right side front turn signal/parking light had rusted to the point that the ground was lost, so the bulb was grounding back through the circuit in some way. A new $5.00 socket ordered from rockauto.com solved the problem.

Often when lights behave strangely like this, the culprit is ultimately found to be a bad ground somewhere.

What I would do in your case, at least as the first thing to try, is remove tail light, side marker light, and parking light bulbs one at a time, stepping on the brake pedal each time after a particular bulb is removed. If no change, replace that bulb, and move on to and remove the next one. I'm guessing that, when the bulb that's in the socket with the bad ground is removed, everything will suddenly work OK. Then you know what socket or socket wiring to investigate further.

For all we know, if you are able to solve your light problem, your GEN light on problem might go away as well.

rvandeven

I have heard to try that trick. I will check it out. I did find the lone ground wire for all of the tailights. It was in good shape. I will know this evening. Thanks again.

jaunty75

In my case, the problem was not a bad ground wire per se. The ground wire connecting to the back of the socket was fine. What had rusted to the point of failure was the metal connection between the ground wire and where the bulb grounded inside the socket.

Below is a head-on view of one of these sockets. The yellow arrow points to what was rusty on mine. That ring was very rusty in some places while looking very clean in others. At a glance, you wouldn't necessarily suspect a problem. I should have been able to touch my Ohm meter to any part of it or any of those three metal tabs sticking up with the other lead grounded to the car's frame and gotten continuity (zero Ohms), but instead the meter read infinite resistance, which indicates an open circuit.

rvandeven

I found a bad socket. $4.59 part from O'Reilly's. Thanks for the advice!