Hello, I had to put on a new brake light switch. Lights go on and off now as expected but the passenger brake light is dimmer than the driver side. Changed to bulb but no difference. What should I looks for next?
I have to take the car on a highway trip this week. So if I can't find what is causing the dim light can I temporarily put an led light in the socket to even out the brightness between the lights.
Can try & see, maybe. I suspect if it's ground/socket issue, LED may not light at all. Reason for dimness with std bulb, without ground, brake light section of lamp is grounding through the regular tail lamp filament. That filament is what you are seeing with brake application. Turn on park lights, I'll bet brake light doesn't work at all... LED is a one way device, without current path from brake LED through tail LED, there is no current path.
Hey Krazy Komet, I see your are in VA. Have you ever gone to the big show in Ocean City MD. I grew up there and that was our vacation place. We did the show in 2013. Put the car on the AutoTrain. It dropped us off in Lorton and we drove the 180 miles to OC. One of the best shows ever been to.
I'll give the wiring a try. See if I can ground it better. If its the socket guess I'll have to replace it somehow.
I've considered OC, somehow never happened. My Cobra was sold new in Salisbury, & I've talked with original owner. Unfortunately he passed away in '15, kinda took away the interest.
Do the rear turn signals work equally well? If they do, the brake light side of the socket may be bad. You may be able to clean the contact. If the turn signal on that side works bad (or fast) too, then it is probably a bad ground. What part of Florida are you in? I am close to Tampa.
A little more info on my issue. The 1157 bulbs have an upper and a lower filament. On the side the brake light works properly the lower filament lights up when the brake pedal is depressed. But on the side where it is dim the upper filament is lighting up when the brake light is depressed. The turn signal works fine but it is blinking the upper filament on the dim side. I took the ground wire off the socket and nothing changed. I tried an LED bulb and it did not even light up. I also remembered when the previous switch was in both lights worked fine. The switch went bad and the lights would not turn off. That is what prompted me to change the switch. But since I changed the switch I am having this issue. Could it be a bad switch or could I have messed up the wires connecting to the switch? I am in the St. Pete area.
Sounds like it had the socket replaced and was wired backwards. Is the taillight brighter on that side?
I am going to say the ground on the dim side is likely a problem. You took it off, nothing changed. The circuits are probably feeding back through the other circuits to find a ground. Remember this rule .... HALF of automotive electrical problems will be a bad ground. It is mostly true .... lol. Grounds are half of the equation. If you paint a car and reattach the ground but don't scrape back down to bare metal, you will probably have a bad ground. It may look great, but work bad. Did the contacts inside the light socket look shiny? If they are cruddy, that can cause problems. You are in St. Pete, .... I am sure you know where Dunedin is. We are pretty close. Another member, Frank, has a 72 Comet in Pinellas Park, too.
Thanks Captain. I will look at this today and try to ground the socket differently and\or clean the contacts. We love Dunedin. The downtown is a great place to hang out. Hopefully if the car shows start up again we can meet up at one. Attached is picture of our Comet. In case you see us driving around town.
Well you are never going to believe what the issue was.......the bulb was in the socket backwards. I had no idea there was a right way and a wrong wrong way to put the bulb in. Since it goes in both ways I assumed the connection would be the same. Learned something new. Lights are back to normal and back out on the road. Thanks to everyone who responded. I now have more info to use if I run into any other issues with the lights.
Congrats... Actually the bulb does fit only one way, alignment pins are staggered. Possible to force bulb into place rotated 180*.
