911 SC taillight problem.

[hdrockerroller]

Turns out there's a short in the rear engine lid light.

If I unbolt the light from the engine lid and leave it hang by the wires, the short is gone and the engine compartment light lights. If I screw it back in, the short comes back. The wires coming out of the engine light look OK, but it must be internally shorted to ground.

[timmy2]

Im glad you found the real problem before attempting any splicing and repairing of the harness.
I don't have the engine lamp in my ROW low option car, so I rarely think about that circuit that they tied into the tail light.

There are some older threads about repairing the lamp grounding problem. Do a search and read up on it.

[hdrockerroller]

Yea, thanks for all the help.
Tomorrow I'll put it all back together with the engine light removed and see if all the lights work again. I'll post an update.
I didn't find it before, but I found a thread where someone else went through this exact process to find out the same thing.

[hdrockerroller]

So, to summarize the solution to the left tail light out issue I was having:

The entire problem was caused by a trunk lid light that was wired in backwards.
It definitely matters which lead goes to which terminal in the trunk lid light.
One lead has an insulator for the hot wire to keep it from grounding, the other lead connects directly to the housing of the trunk light and will be grounded when light is attached to the trunk lid.

The grey wire is hot, and should connect to the terminal that is insulated.
The brown wire is ground, and connects to the terminal that is grounded.

All lights work again as they should. There was actually no other issue other than the grounded trunk lid light.

Thanks to everyone who helped out, and timmy2 for taking time out of is day to walk through some trouble shooting over the phone.