Suddenly, I've got no brake lights, no rear parking lights, no rear night lights and no rear signal lights.

Strangely, I still have the white back-up lights working fine. All of my front lights and signals work fine.

This is, I guess, a follow-up to my old "battery completely dead" thread. This must have been the short that was draining my battery, and then mysteriously disappeared.

Is this likely to be an easy fix, or do I need to hire someone to completely re-wire the back lights? Whaddaya think?

 

Unless you have had your car re-wired you will still have a 5"x3" black box that you wiring harness runs into, which is located in your rear hatch area on the drivers side. I can't even tell you its purpose, but mine was fried (circut board inside) The guy who re-wired my car eliminated this and wired my stuff directly somehow. Anyways I am confident your problem is there!

 

Thanks. Can you be a bit more specific about where this 5x3 box is? I spent some time back there when I was dealing with the battery issue, and I don't remember seeing it.

 

madmaxgt:
Was this black box a factory item :confused: . Do you think it was a disconnected add on something or other? If it was an add on, then I would say, mg62, you must trace a shorted ground or fuse. And the short was causing your battery drain. Rewiring the rear lights may not fix the problem. It could be something simple. Good luck, I hate tracing that stuff.

 

If the blinkers actually blink, then a wire which goes to the rear tail lights has shorted. If a bulb blows out in any turn signal lamp then the rest of the lamps just turn on, but don't blink...due to the open circuit, this would also happen if a wire becomes disconnected and is just hanging. But if the wire becomes disconnected AND shorts out against some ground like the frame then the rest of the lamps will blink while the lamps that the wire should be supplying juice to will not light at all. Since both tail lights do not light at all, and the rest of them blink then it's a shorted wire. Also, since it's unlikely that two wires will short out at the same time, then I would suspect the turn signal switch, or fuse box. Since your rear parking lamps also are not lighting then the fuse box is very suspicious. However, when I get some lamps out I always check the bulbs first, and inspect the wires going to them...there could be a short that is easy to get to, without having to pull the fuse box, for example the wires could have been touching a muffler and melted themselves to it. Also, when looking for this short be sure to disconnect the battery before you start in on the fuse box or the connector. But, you might want to keep the battery connected when you inspect the lamps and wires at the rear just in case shaking the wires or lamps fix it...you should still investigate to see what caused the problem though.

Also, I think the other guys are talking about the firewall connector where all the wires from the engine compartment lead into the car behind the dash. The location can be determined by looking in the engine compartment and seeing where all the wires go. I believe the connector is at the fuse box...not sure cause I'm not at my vette right now, and don't have a manual with me to be sure.

Plus, given that you have that drain that's there all the time I think it's more than likely to be something in the fuse box.

 

The first thing I would check is to see if you have dash lights. If no dashlights then its a fuse.

 

Guys, this is real embarrassing. Turns out that both (that's right, both) brake light bulbs were burnt out. Sheesh!