Tail light issue

[BrandonBDenver]

My car is a 1946 Plymouth Special Deluxe sedan. It has been converted to 12v. Headlights work, turn signals work (front and rear), brake lights work, but... no tail lights?

 

The bulb in the brake/tail light housing is a dual filament (one for brake one for turn signal). Should there be another bulb for the tail lights or am I thinking about this incorrectly? any help is greatly appreciated so I can take her to evening car shows this summer and be seen driving home (and not get ticketed as well haha!)

 

Thanks! 

Edited May 9, 2019 by BrandonBDenver

[Don Coatney]

Bright bulb is dual purpose (brake and turn signal) Dim bulb is tail lights

[BrandonBDenver]

1 minute ago, Don Coatney said:

Bright bulb is dual purpose (brake and turn signal) Dim bulb is tail lights

That is the issue though, there is only one bulb in the housing...

[Don Coatney]

Dual filament bulb. Bright side brake and turn, dim side tail lights. 

 

[BrandonBDenver]

1 minute ago, Don Coatney said:

Dual filament bulb. Bright side brake and turn, dim side tail lights. 

 

Sorry, Don! Reread that and see what you mean haha! It's still early

 

Maybe I need to replace the bulb but it looks like both filaments are good. Would the tail lights be on a separate fuse? Maybe it was overlooked when the previous owner did the 12v conversion.

[Plymouthy Adams]

get  yourself a VOM and do a bit of testing....while it is good to have spare bulbs in the car....the meter will let you know if the bulb is good and what power is available to operate the system

[Don Coatney]

Tail lights get power from the head light switch

[Silverdome]

Give this a look see 

it could be wired wrong.

[BrandonBDenver]

17 minutes ago, Silverdome said:

Give this a look see 

it could be wired wrong.

Thank you!

[BrandonBDenver]

19 minutes ago, BrandonBDenver said:

Thank you!

This appears to be wiring specific to the turn signal switch (unless I am wrong). Do you have a similar diagram for the headlight switch wiring?

[BrandonBDenver]

40 minutes ago, Silverdome said:

Give this a look see 

it could be wired wrong.

This appears to be wiring specific to the turn signal switch (unless I am wrong). Do you have a similar diagram for the headlight switch wiring?

[Plymouthy Adams]

do you have a factory repair manual, the wiring is included in that book.  search of our forum should net a copy pasted on here in the past...

[BobT-47P15]

Could the bulb be inserted with contacts reversed?  I don't know if your bulb housings have a guide to make sure the bulb only goes in in one way.

[Silverdome]

Brandon, you are correct that is specific to that turn signal switch but it will also give you an idea of how it should or could be wired. Like Plymouthy said factory repair manual will show you how the factory did this. You stated that it had been converted to 12 volt so it may not have factory wiring. So that is why I posted that link. Just trying to help. Hopefully you will get it sorted out quickly.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Silverdome

[BrandonBDenver]

7 minutes ago, Silverdome said:

Brandon, you are correct that is specific to that turn signal switch but it will also give you an idea of how it should or could be wired. Like Plymouthy said factory repair manual will show you how the factory did this. You stated that it had been converted to 12 volt so it may not have factory wiring. So that is why I posted that link. Just trying to help. Hopefully you will get it sorted out quickly.

I think it is all new wiring. Hoping the previous owner didn't screw up when installing ?

[BobDeSoto]

Some cars had the dash lights on the same fuse as the tail lights.  If your dash lights didn't work it alerted you to the fact that your tail lights weren't working.

[greg g]

46 did not come with signal lights. The original wiring would have had one wire to each tail light for rear running lights at each corner. And one wire from the brake ight switch to the single center of the trunk lid brake light.  Typically when signals were added, the single wire pig tails in the running lights were replaced with a dualpigtail insert and the single element running light bulbs were replaced by dual filiment buds so that the brighter element was aligned to the new signal input wire and the original wire going to the dim element.

Keep the original socket remove the single pig tail, add the pig tail shown below and wire appropriately to light the correct element for running, the other for signal.

[YukonJack]

12 hours ago, BrandonBDenver said:

This appears to be wiring specific to the turn signal switch (unless I am wrong). Do you have a similar diagram for the headlight switch wiring?