No Marker Lights & No Brake Lights? 68 Charger

Hey all,

My Brake Lights and my Tail-lights / Marker lights are acting weird on my 68 Charger. If I monkey with the headlight switch, and get it in EXACTLY the right position, my marker lights will come on and my brake-lights will work.

It makes sense that something being bad in the switch would make the marker lights only work if the switch was in a certain spot, but what would that have to do with my Brakelights?

I can live without marker lights while I track down a headlight switch, but no brakelights mean I'm not going anywhere.

Am I garaged until I can get a switch or is there something else wrong?

FWIW - I've been blowing a lot of tail-light fuses lately, but I thought that's because my brake pedal switch was mis-adjusted, and the pedal would sag after I parked and the brake-lights would be on for hours. I'm not sure if that tidbit is important.

Playing with this a little, here's what I get:

Headlight switch off: no brake lights
Switch 1/2 way (position for marker lights on): no markers, no tailights, no dashlights, no brakelights
Switch 3/4 (more or less): marker lights, tailights, dashlights and brakelights all work fine
Switch full on: Headlights on, no marker, dash, tail or brakelights.

I don't see why this would affect the Brakelights working or not-working. Although not having tail-lights is kind of a problem, too.

I'd start w pulling the bakelite connector off of the headlight sw & jump fire to each brass terminal in the connector & see if each circuit is isolated. Pull a batt cable & see if there's continuity between the pink/white wires at the brake light sw and any of the terminals in the headlight sw bakelite connector. That should get you started. EDIT continuity w an ohmmeter

Thanks Robert.

After staring at the wiring diagram for the last hour, I think I understand how all this works. My blinkers operate fine, but they are powered from the ignition switch. My flashers do not work - and the flashers operate off a very short fairly isolated circuit.

So, I'm pretty sure my problem is somewhere between the fusebox and brake switch. At least I hope so, because that will be easier and cheaper to fix than anything that is headlight switch related.

Check power side of each circuit for power, if ok then..
Check your Ground side of each circuit for corrosion, bad connections or internal breaks in the wires.

Sounds like a ground problem.

Do your turn signals work? I recently went through similar issues on my car after replacing the cam in the column. I had to pull it apart again and make some adjustment. Everything worked on the front but I had nothing on the rear. After fixing it everything is good.

Quote:

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Do your turn signals work? I recently went through similar issues on my car after replacing the cam in the column. I had to pull it apart again and make some adjustment. Everything worked on the front but I had nothing on the rear. After fixing it everything is good.

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Turn signals work. I see that the signal switch seems to be a core part of the brake-light wiring. I was able to test everything up to the headlight switch, but didn't have the chance to test the switch itself. Now I'm out of town until Friday, and I hate to do it but it looks like I'll try and order a headlight switch this afternoon just in case, so it shows up before the weekend. Otherwise if I waited until I got home and tested the switch (which is probably the cause) I wouldn't be able to get a new one in time for the long weekend.

Worst case, if it's not the switch, I suppose I could sell it in the want ads for a small loss.