Continuing on my '64 project and am involved with the interior. I have replaced all of the wiring harnesses from Lectirc Limited. I have been sequentially connecting the harnesses so as to be able to more easily trace any problems, if they arise. The engine and the dash seem to be perfectly functional. I attached the rear harness to the main harness and checked for function. First of all, when just the tail lights are on, the brighter of the two filaments is on. Additionally, when the turn indicator light is on and or the brake is depressed, it is not detectable due to the brightness of the tail light. With the lights off, the brake lights are on the smaller filament. When the lights are off and brake depressed and the directional signal is activated, the smaller filament will flash on the appropriate side. The front parking lights, which are also 2 filament bulbs, appear to be functioning perfectly both with the parking lights on and off. The bulbs are both 1157 in the rears. I have compared the new vs old wiring harnesses and they match by color and position/orientation in the connectors new and old. The wire colors do not correspond with the wiring diagram in the '64 shop manual:

Left side

right side
These wires are over the shop manual and it is clear, the colors don't correspond. My questions are:
Should the tail lights utilize brighter filament? I think the brake lights should be brighter.
With this situation, does anyone have any suggestions if the wrong filaments are lighting?

Thank you all in advance.

 

The brake lights use the brighter filament in the rear. The brake signal goes through the turn signal switch and when a turn signal is enabled, it flashes the corresponding brake light.

Sounds like your tail and brake lights are switched.

 

Thank you Factoid fr your input. With your information in mind, the variable now is my repro tail lights from Mid America. If the socket was put in 180 degrees off, it would result in the light display that I have.

 

I have a 64 coupe (Dec 63 built) without backup lamps with the original harness having the same colors as your present harness. Recently I unwrapped , inspected, repaired and re-wrapped my harness which was in better shape than it looked. I can't explain why but the harness colors match the 65 shop manual. Besides the wire colors, there are a number of other errors in the 64 wiring diagrams, two of which are the license plate light labeled as black when it is brown and the pass side ground listed as 18ga when it is 16ga. As to your problem, the nylon inserts are keyed to fit into the lamp housing only one way but they are not fool proof. The nylon connector will have a wide and a narrow tab to correspond with the lamp housing slots. Check the connectors are inserted correctly.

 

^ Yes, I have heard that some were able to install them bass ackward.

 

Thank you Buns, I have triple checked that the wiring harness socket orientation and it is consistent with my old harness and the sockets cannot be easily put in with the wrong orientation. My suspicion is the light assembly.

 

Not sure what you mean by light ***'y, but nothing ties the brake and tail lights together except at the sockets. The ground feeds on a single black wire for all the rear lights, including the license lamp, through the rear body connector and connects to the instrument panel ground, which is grounded to the car on the black wire at the radio connector with a ring terminal that screws into the Zbar. If you're sure the ground is good, you have to have a wiring or socket problem. All the rear sockets tie together and go to the black wire I described.

The tail lamps all work on the brown wire circuits as does the license lamp. It comes from the headlight switch through the "tail" fuse. The brake lamps come from the turn signal switch and both work with the signal in the center position and only the opposite side brake light works when in a turn position. The brake lights work anytime, key on, key off as long as the switch is in the center position and your brake light fuse and switch on the pedal are good. The turn signal lights also come from the turn signal switch, but the source voltage is the turn signal flasher ***'y and only work with the key on and the signal switch in the direction you want to flash.

The brake and turn signal voltage come in on a yellow wire for the driver's side and a green wire for the passenger side. The same wire is used for both the brake and turn signal voltage, the turn signal switch only decides whether you get the voltage from the flasher or the brake light switch.

Other than the ground and socket there is no other connection between the brake and tail lamps.

 

Thank you for the reply 65GGvert. I believe my new tail lights have either the rear socket where the wiring harness attaches to the tail light or the bulb socket was installed off by 180 degrees. As a last resort, I can cut my wiring harness and switch the wires but I'm going to contact Mid America 1st tomorrow.

 

No need to cut wires. You can switch them at the front to rear body connector.

 

As a follow up: I returned the tail lights and bought replacements. The box indicated they were made by Trim Parts. Works perfectly so my assessment was correct in that they were defective and no need to change any wiring. Thank you for all of your input.

 

I appreciate you coming back with the fix. You're one of the few lately who have followed up with what happened. Thank you for that and I'm glad you got it going.

 

Strange - Trim Parts is a top repro vendor and a supplier to all the major Corvette parts suppliers, their stuff is usually top shelf.

 

Which "worked perfectly", the Trim Parts, or the other? Can't really tell which one you got first from that. I read it as Lectric Limited did not work, but Trim did, is that correct?

 

I'm GUESSING you meant you replaced the ORIGINAL wiring with harnesses FROM Lectric Limited. Or did you have a problem with LL and decide to get rid of their stuff?

I ask not to be picky, but at some point in the near future I'll be ordering all new harnesses for mine and would like to know if there is an issue with their product. So far I have heard good things about them, and presume you just dropped a couple words from your reply. (I've done that myself!).

 

My harness is from Lectric Limited. The initial replacement tail lights were from Mid America. I don't recall if they were Trim Parts. The second set I bought from Long Island Corvette and they were definitely Trim Parts.

In considering the defect, the metal piece that the bulb and harness connects to is pressed into the light, Although I didn't test it, my bet is that the lights would have functioned properly if I switched sides but the lights themselves would not fit.