Last Saturday, my wife said that she saw the left brake light wasn't working on my 69 Charger. Just got the time to look into it tonight. So in the garage, I go on the brake pedal and I can see that both sides are lit up. No problem. Wrong. The left said just went out and would not come back on. I took that taillght cover out of the trunk and looked at the bulbs. They look okay. I switched the bulbs from the right side to the left and got the same result... No left brake lights. What could be the problem? The light sockets are nice and clean, they look like new. The parking lights and turnsignals work fine. The car was in staroage for 13 years and I just got it going again last Saturday. I don't remember having any brake light problems before. I guess I should consider myself lucky that this is my only problem after 13 years.

Turn sig switch.

Another thing to check would be the ground.

Our old Mopars have a common problem getting a ground through the taillight housings.

Run a separate temporary ground to the socket and see if makes any difference.

Update:

I just went down in the garage and tried the flashers (hazard lights). Only the left front works. No right front and nothing at all in the back. ALSO, the left hood turnsignal isn't working. The wire looks pretty nasty at the socket. Would any of this affect that left brake light?

With a thin wire probe see if the dark green wire in the steering column turn signal pull apart connector has fire w (brake depressed)(stick it into the green wire terminal w the 2 halves still together) & if so work rearward till you find the "open". If not pull apart the connector and if the upstream half (of the green wire connection) has no fire then as said the turn signal plastic cam assy under the steering wheel.

Steve while the problem may pose itself to appear like a turn signal switch,...check anyway, but usually the Charger has problems with the bulkhead connector for the rear harness, located in the driversside kickpanel,...I've replace, or spliced out so many of those over the decades, that's usually the first place to start when tailights start going out randomly, directionals start acting up, no brake lights etc,....sometimes the connector looks good from the outside, but being small gauge wire, heats up and loosens/ and eventually corrodes the connectors inside, I find oxidation being the biggest problem in the connector

Also you didn't by chance change out the inboard bulbs in the tailights did you",...the little odd sized jobs?....I can't recall the bulb number (odd#) generally not avaliable, but sometimes the substitute can short out in the bulb housing, but still work, but cause "gremlins" electricaly,....if the problem still persists, remove the 2 inboard bulbs, see how that goes?

Mike

Mike, I haven't changed any bulbs, all that stuff is as it was 13 years ago when I parked the car.

I really think the problem is the turnsignal switch. If I jiggle (is that a word? ) the turnsignal arm up just slightly, it makes the left brake light go on. And, the turn signal arm seems to be sort of loose, or has more "play" than any of my other old Mopars. Would you agree that this sounds like the switch is the problem?

Perhaps while we are at it here we could talk about a problem that this car had back when it was my daily driver.



I got this car in 88 for $500 when I was 19. Just an old used car then with high miles and undesirable colors and drivetrain. Regardless, it was an okay deal and I bought it. Served me great as I racked up like 30,000 miles in the first year. Around 1991 or 1992 I started to have trouble with the headlights. After a night of driving, the switch would get hot and they would go out or start to flash. Usually, I could just pull over and turn the lights off for a while and then return to driving. It gradually got worse. I replaced the dimmer switch with a new one from the dealer with no change. Back then, you used to be able to go to junkyards and they actually HAD Chargers. I used to grab all the headlight switches I could get. I got to be a pro at swapping out headlight switches. Each switch would have varying degrees of success until finally I noticed that the connector was looking really distorted. I had my local garage (a friend of mine) cut off my connector and attach a better one. This fixed the problem for quite some time. By about 1993/94 I had picked up a beater 71 Duster Twister ($500 again ) so I wouldn't have to drive the Charger in the rain and snow. Parts for the Charger had started to become so expensive and hard to find, that I had feared wrecking it in foul weather. Around this time, the headlights problem came back. I remember, I used to drive with the vent window open real far to help keep the headlight switch cool if I ran late somewhere and had to drive at night. I started driving it less and less. Got other Mopars, bought a house, started a family and just got busy as hell. The Charger went into the garage one day in 1997 and didn't come out until 2010.

Recently, I have read on here about checking grounds, but we did that back in the 90s and everything seemed ok unless there are more grounds than we checked. What else could it be? When I was installing the new battery last week, I did notice what looked like a bulkhead type connector in the headlight harness right along side of the battery. I was thinking about pulling it apart today and cleaning it out with electrical parts cleaner. Please keep in mind, when I starting having the headlight problems was before the internet and I pretty much had nobody to go to with problems like this except my buddy at the local garage and he seemed to be at the end of his rope with checking the ground and replaceing the switches. And, I wasn't the only Charger owner with this problem. I knew another young guy bac then with a beater 68 Charger and he had the same problem.

Hey Steve....regarding some of the Charger problems your having, they are typical of not just Chargers, but any Mopar with 40 plus yr old wiring,...tighting the screw holding the turn signal arm, is just that, just an arm moving the "cam" assy that transmits voltage signal to the corresponding terminals, if the lights are flickering/intermittent from fooling with the turn signal/flasher switch,...time for a replacement, I've gotten mine in the past from Year One, basically a Chrysler factory part, a superceeded part, some differences, but just trim the excess molded plastic away to retrofit it in your column, easy job, and just confirm wire applications/routeing before plugging it into the harness,...the Year One pn# for a 69 B Body is FD47801 list $52, it's not that hard a part to install just a PITA

As far as the Lightswitch problem, I've usually seen that a lot more on the 70 Chargers, as they use a motor/relay to raise the headlite doors, rather than vacumm,... usually the wiring/ harness running from the switch connectors into the main harness gets overly hot running the headlite current, and either fuses with another wire(s), or starts desintergrating within it plastic covering, usually a real pain unwrapping/following/testing the harness in that area,.....best off trying to repair/find the condition, as new underdash harness's are about $500,..........if your having Dash-instrumentlite issuses?,...9 out of 10 times it the dimmer switch, as the windings are exposed, and oxidizes over the years creating intermittent/high resistance surges,....new dimmer switches are avaliable for around $100+ .....and check and clean all grounds, even if you have to fabricate some grounds, it can't hurt, only help,....check your steering column under the dash, it should have a grounding wire/bayonet on the column mounting studs grounding the column, I usually like to fabricate a ground(s) for the instrument fascia panel,...the bulkhead fitting that you reference behind the battery, is the "lights forward harness" connector, all your front lites/directionals........ IIRC there's 6 wires in the harness, 1 is a ground....it helps to download a wiring harness manual for your car, or access a factory service manual, makes troubleshooting much easier, also make sure your floor mounted headlite high beam dimmer switch is in good condition and mounted to clean bare steel/clean screws, it needs a good ground, if the switch has seen better days replace it, they're cheap

Mike

Quote:

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the Year One pn# for a 69 B Body is FD47801 list $52, it's not that hard a part to install just a PITA

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I checked several websites... Jack's, BE&A, Dante's and Year One. Year One is the only place that advertise the turn signal switches. FD47801 is listed at $119... Not $52. (There is some inflation for 'ya.)

http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/webapp/...SWAMS_812694106

Advance Auto Parts has this one listed - I used a similar one in my '69, don't recall if this was the same part or not, but if you're having to modify it to make it work, this will pay you for your time.