luke3

Hello Everyone!

New member here, just joined after owning my 1996 for about a month now and lurking since almost a year before purchase to make sure I did my research. You guys definitely helped me tremendously in getting her back into top shape for daily driver duties.

Recently i've been having a couple of strange electrical issues. The other day both my backup lights went out cold. The rear side markers still turn on when I go into reverse (Automatic) but not the backup lights. When I got the car the right bulb was out, I replaced it and all worked fine until they suddenly both stopped working. Any advice on the possible culprit?

Also my power antenna is acting up, but not in the usual failure modes. It will randomly quit working and get stuck either up or down with no noticeable pattern except it is more common when the humidity goes up or it is about to rain, but it's anectodal and I cannot really find a correlation. When it sticks I cannot hear the motor running at all. I suspect the relay might be sticking, is that even possible or are there other alternatives?

Thanks in advance!

Hot Rod Roy

If both license plate backup lights quit at the same time, and the fender backups work fine, I'd suspect a bad ground. Try removing ONE ONLY of the license plate backup bulbs, then checking for 12v. on BOTH the center pin and the shell of that socket. If the shell has 12v., you have a bad ground. If you don't have 12v. on either, there's a bad light green wire to these sockets.

If you have 12v. on the center pin, and ground on the shell, you may be fighting corrosion in the sockets. Clean things up, and use some dielectric grease on your light bulb bases.

Joe C

- I remember all kind of crazy and weird things happening on my 69 coupe because of a bad ground.

luke3

Thanks!
I'll check the sockets and clean out the appropriate chassis grounds (I believe G401 and G402 for the lights and G400 for the antenna?) and report back if it works.