Tailights

Sorry for hitting the wrong key and giving an incomplete post.


I purchased a reproduction pickup tailight for my 36 1.5 ton. It has two sockets, the upper containing a large lamp and the lower containing one the size of a parking or dash lamp. The green wire from the stop light switch goes into the upper and the black wire from the light switch goes to the lower. There is a divider between them and a clear lens to the license plate below the small one.


The upper light works well as a brake light, but the lower isn't much of a tail light, being fairly dim and only illuminating the lower half of the lens.


Is this the way it should be? Perhaps it is just a matter of putting a bigger lamp in the lower socket, although it wouldn't fit well under the divider?
 
bbook said:
Sorry for hitting the wrong key and giving an incomplete post.
?
Click to expand...
You can always go back and correct or add something just by going to the lower "EDIT" hitting that key, make the changes and then hit "SAVE" at the bottom:D
 
bbook said:
Sorry for hitting the wrong key and giving an incomplete post.


I purchased a reproduction pickup tailight for my 36 1.5 ton. It has two sockets, the upper containing a large lamp and the lower containing one the size of a parking or dash lamp. The green wire from the stop light switch goes into the upper and the black wire from the light switch goes to the lower. There is a divider between them and a clear lens to the license plate below the small one.


The upper light works well as a brake light, but the lower isn't much of a tail light, being fairly dim and only illuminating the lower half of the lens.


Is this the way it should be? Perhaps it is just a matter of putting a bigger lamp in the lower socket, although it wouldn't fit well under the divider?
Click to expand...

6 volt still? May not have a good, solid ground.
 
I struggled with a good ground, but have that solved. I just wanted to verify the lamp configuration. Having a small lamp isolated to the bottom half of the assembly seems appropriate for a license plate light, but seems inadequate if it has to act as the tail light as well. The lamp acting as the brake light in the top half of the assembly is adequate, but is no help for tail lighting.


Thanks for the editing info Capn John. I got a phone call after I messed up and didn't get back to correcting my mistake till Old Henry had already responded. I'll do better next time.
 
You can get bulbs with more candle power and it helps if you paint the inside of the housing white for more reflection.
 
No one spoke up and said the lamps in the taillight fixture or their location are wrong, and I have since seen a ford schematic that seems to confirm that what I purchased is set up correctly. I'll move forward with the good advice offered by Green Monster and TJ to confirm my ground, get the highest candlepower lamps I can get in there and paint the inside of the housing white.


Thanks for the help.
 
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