Pretty new to having my 1962, car is unrestored and sat for many years i would guess till it was freshened up for selling
tail lights were an issue from day one

investigated and found bad bulbs, no bulbs and lots of corrosion and movement of the wires in the trunk would cause a lamp or 2 to work intermittently .

bought the repair pigtails and installed them, (had had previous pigtails put in and the brass shells were mangled from likely wrong tabs on the pigtails jammed in) cleaned the existing sockets put in LED taillights, electronic flasher and thought i solved the problem.

then in testing, the brightness level would vary or be intermittent when pushing on the pedal, assumed likely high resistance in the brake light switch on the pedal so a new one of those. problem solved

so happily driving the car and i have a lady holler your left taillights are out! What?

so at this point I figure an easy way to test things was to put a small bright red LED temporally attached to the pink wire and one to the violet and dangle them by the radio so i can see what is happening (without getting my wife out in the garage and arguing about what on/off means) step on the brakes the LED's light up and then wiggle the directional and one or both go out.

okay that based on this thread it means new switch and clean or replace the cancelling switch assembly, parts are now ordered but I can at least drive the car and if need be i have the red LE's to let me know if the brake lights are not working and a quick touch to the directional switch fixes it.

What I can't figure out is if i have the car lights in park or in full on position the red LEDS do not light up but the brake and directional lights function with pushing the pedal or directional ??? not sure how that could be as they are hard wired to the pink and violet!

Any thoughts?

 

I had a similar problem. It ended up that the cancel cam was not dead set in the middle. I did run an extra ground to the frame on the back. Same goes for the gas tank. You can test the power with a simple light test. Ground it and check each wire out of the wiring harness. That should get you what you need to check. Then do the same on the back too. From there check the power to the switch and figure out which one is not getting power. You can do the same thing with the steering wheel off and check the contacts there..

 

that’s two totally different circuits in the same housing. The brakes and turn signals come from the turn signal switch the tail lights come from the headlight switch, different wires same bulbs, same grounds. There are two filaments in each bulb at the front and at the rear. The front turn signals come from another source. From inside the turn signal switch.

 

Well by all accounts i hope I have this solved, picture after i pulled the steering wheel off, note the solution of the wedge not being tight enough to secure the housing, at least the screws are SS. this kinda reflects the condition of the car in general. I better understand why the seller sold the car thru a dealer as a consignment

things cleaned up pretty well and i also did the brass 1/4 tube solution to the pins and that seems to help

no marks on the front of the aftermarket hub so i am going to place the cancelling pins at 8:00 and 12:00 as noted in another post?

Is never seize a good or bad idea on the hub?

 

8 and 10 on the pins.

 

Ground everything real good.