Alright, heres the run-down. My headlights work, but when highbeam is turned on both right side lights shut off and left side works fine. problem #1. problem #2 is that none of my tailights or brake lights or anything work. they are not mounted to the bumper. when i press the brake pedal the dash lights come on..... #3 . the side marker signal lights do work, with the exception that signal right or left they both flash. Any and all help would be greatly appreaciated. tvm Dan
edit: 72 cutlass s.

 

The lights are grounder to the chassis through the bumpers i beleive at least the front signals and rear lights. I had issues like this too. Hook everything up make sure your grounds are all hooked up. i kept poping fuses and i couldnt understnad why. All of my lights worked turns out i had a loose wire everytime i hit a bump it would shake the wire and arc and pop the fuse.

 

just the reply i was hoping to get! and fast too! thanks. I was starting to think they were grounded through the bumpers. ill keep posted with what i find. the car was all apart when i got it so i had no idea if anything even worked 15 years ago that it was parked!

 

also 40 year old wire tends to get weak and corroded . When i restored mine everything worked. After moving everything and wrestling it out. It didint work so good. I had to fix some of the harnesses and replace some wires individually.

 

ya exactly. some of it is pretty hard. would hate to have a electrical fire. im going to have to go though it pretty closely. theres live wires that are just cut and left open. power wires that have a problem somewhere so power was robbed from the fuse box. i donno just a mess :P

 

i know the engine harnesses are cheap from amreican wire i think. The parts place inc sells them . I just dont know if they sell the light harness. I bought the engine harness and it was well worth the money.

 

I agree with the general gist of this discussion - it sounds like your current system is so disassembled and AFU that a simple answer can't be given. You need to go through it, make sure all of the grounds are grounded, the bulbs are good, and the contacts are clean before you can really figure out what, if anything, is wrong.

- Eric

 

MDchanic can you confirm that the tailights are grounded via there housing bolted to the bumper?

 

Have you verified that the RH bulbs are not burned out? Keep in mind that there are TWO filaments in the low beam bulb. If the high beam filament is burned out, the bulb will go dark when you switch to high beams.

 

It's been 20 years since I owned a '70 Cutlass, but the diagram shows each light socket grounded. Since the lights are mounted in the rear bumper, it would stand to reason that they're grounded through the bumper. One way or another, they've got to be grounded.

- Eric

 

They do ground to the bumper. Turn on the lights and push one of the tail lights to the chassis

 

joe: i did not realixe there were two fillaments in the low beam. i checked for power to the lights when on highbeam and nothing to either.
alright the rear lights are a go! got light just hope all my functions work when its all put back together. just jumpered a wire from the housings to ground a voila.