wiring up tail lights.

just got another 74' project and I.m trying to get the tail lights working. the headlights and front running lights work,but no tail lights.
my question is does there have to be a complete circuit from headlights all the way to tail lail lights for them to work? right now I'm working on the left rear with the right rear light not installed. And no marker lights on any of the corners.
So I just need a push in the right direction, short of buying a new wiring harness. thanks,

Duke

 

You can wire up the tailights by themselves. You just need both the 12v from the light switch and good chassis ground to the other side of the bulbs. Same thing for the brake side of the bulb except the 12v source would come from the brake switch. The markers would come off the front parking and the rear markers would come from the tailights, but not the brake lights.
Hope that helps.

 

that helps a lot. telling me how and where the marker light wires come off of is the biggest help. thanks,
Duke

 

When I wired mine I bought a 4 wire trailer wiring kit (complete with lights). It's the wrong colors for the Jeep diagrams but the it was available (cheap) and it was fast. The hard part was running the wires down the frame and getting the new clamps bolted in.

Oh, and trying to get the after market turn signal switch to work. What a pain!

 

the 4-wire trailer kit don't sound to bad. after all, I did say I didn't want to install a new wiring harness.
the only part I dindn't understand was the part about , getting new clamps bolted in.
Thanks for the trailer kit idea.
Duke

 

Any circuit will work as long as you have it from the battery to the load to the battery. I would consider the "lights" a complete system and wire everything together as one circuit. In very basic terms, I'd go from battert to swtich to all the lights to ground.

Think of each light as a seperate circuit that begins at the switch. Switch to headlights, switch to front marker, switch to rear lights.

FWIW, it seems that most of the time something electrical does not work, it's because a ground is bad.

 

aallison,
now that explanation gets me on the right track with which ever set of lights or wires I use.Iv'e got factorry lights and a nice set from NAPA with 3 wires. A ground and one for tail light and brake light. Matching the right right wire in the order you describe and maybee I'll have this working.
thanks for the information.
Duke

 

I have a 73 cj5 that I just got finished doing a body off rebuild on. I Fabricated and welded in new floorpans, Rebuilt trans tunnel, fabricated and welded in new stronger body sub floor with custom integrated rock sliders, over all tune up, points, condensor, fuel sending unit, etc. As well as a complete rewire. I used a prefab harness from Northwest Automotive. It's a pretty straight forward harness. It upgrades the harness to a fuse block unlike the original. Granted it's not a plug and play like one from painless. But for the money it's not bad. I have everything wired up and working except for the brake lights and turn signals. I also have a "new" spartan turn signal switch (I also, kept the old one that came off of it). I have two new brake light switches(one for the 73-75 and one for 76-86). just in case I couldn't get the one for 73-75 to work I was planning on making the other one work. I have power coming to the feed from the fuse block for the brake lights. I wired it up exactly like the schematic from the haynes manual says.... Nothing! I've tried several different ways to just bypass everything and isolate the brake lights just to make sure they will function....Nothing! I know there's power getting back to the tail lights because the head lights and tail lights and hazards work. Does it matter which wire from the aftermarket tail lights connects to which wire from the harness? i.e. the left/right tail wire and left/right turn wire. I don't think so but I may be wrong. Anyway, I've rambled on enough. If anybody can offer any help i would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,
Chip Jordan

 

The whole rear harness is 5 measley wires. Just yank the whole thing out and make a new one. Add a common dedicated ground and you will have no more issues with running lights, brake lights, turn signals and your gas gauge.