ok heres the details. i have a 1985 chevy caprice 305 5.0 v8 recently my brake lights stop turning on. now when i turn on my light the rear lights come on. i have 3 lights on one side and 3 on the other. so my tail lights look like this [ ] [ ] [ ] LP [ ] [ ] [ ] .....LP stands for license plate. now when i turn on my turning signal only certain lights come on ( the x will represent the lights that are off)[ ] [x] [ ] LP [ ] [x] [x] ...the left turning signal one light is out and the right turn signal two lights are out. i just got done replacing the brake light switch so thats not the problem. any suggestion please reply
Check each individual bulb first to make sure they are not blown first. If the bulbs are good, then I would move on to checking the fuse, but since a couple of the lights are working, it is safe to say the fuse isnt blown, so that leaves the grounding points. If you go in the trunk and pull up the carpeting around the back of the brake light housings, you should be able to spot a black wire coming off of the wiring harness for the lights, and it should be secured to the sheet metal of the car body with a green bolt. This is the grounding point for the lights. Check and make sure this point is secured tightly, unbroken, and undamaged. If the grounding points appear to be okay, then you could have a short in the wiring, which would most likely running new wires throughout the car to the lights.
The Light Bulbs have two filaments in them. One is low light and the other is high light. So the low would be your taillight and when you use the turn or brake, the high light filament will light up unless it has broken or burnt out. It is normal to only have two lights on each side as the Turn/Brake light. So you only need to replace one light bulb. the Left outside.
