rear tail lights out

[tnstaafl]

I've got an 85 1/2 NA whose tail lights have stopped working. All other lights work, brake, back up, etc. I've swapped bulbs and the bulbs are good. I've checked the grounds and they are good. I opened the connector at the tail lights and checked for 12 volts on the tail light lead and have nothing.

I've got a schematic for the electrics but for the life of me I can't find another spot to check except for the light switch. The schematic isn't clear enough to tell what pin on the light switch si for the tail light. Shouldn't they be on the same connector / circuit as the head lights?

Is there another connector or does anyone have a suggestion.

Anyone else had this problem? Searched the forum without luck.

Thanks,

JR

[mambodave]

The tail lights will also go out if the Side marker lights in the front are out ( strange but on and early car I had, that was the only problem.)

[tnstaafl]

FR: Which fuse controls rear tail lights? I can't find it in the list of fuses in my owners manual.

- JR

[IceShark]

By tail lights I assume you mean rear marker/running lights.

The car has 8 total marker lights, 4 on each side of the car. I think this correct but I'm doing this from old memory. For the 85.5+ cars the left side is fuse 40 and the right side is fuse 41. I also think the rear license plate lights are tied into one of the sides as well as the engine bay underhood light - it is something goofy like that and relates to the right side circuit.

Anyway, it would be unusual to lose both rear markers at once and if you did you should lose all the other marker lights on the whole car. You don't mention that this also happened so I would guess it didn't. That tells me something is screwed up in the rear of the car, plugs are corroded, PO did a hack job on the wiring, etc. because you are not losing the "correct" number of lights in the expected way you should lose them.

[tnstaafl]

Thanks FR. and IceShark. Problem was a fuse. I was looking in the owners manual for an indication of which fuse was for tail lights. :-(

Changing out fuse 40 did the trick.

Thanks again,

- JR