[Healeys] Brake Lights, BN6, Failure

[Alan Seigrist]

John -

If you really want bright tail lights, I would highly reccommend
installing a relay in the brake light circuit.  It will make a huge
difference and will light up your third brake light with no problem.
Your TBL is probably not lighting up because it isn't getting enough
juice from the brake light circuit.

Note that since I put the relay on the brake light circuit of my early
BJ8 and early BN1, I've never had any light fluctuation with engine
RPMs or any nonsense like that - just plain old bright tail lights.  I
then switched my bulbs to 3 watt luxeon LED bulbs and that just went
psycho with the amount of light coming out of the back end of the
cars.

Alan


On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 10:50 AM, john close <f9cougar at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Well Guys, hoisted by my own petard again. Tired of tailgating pickups and suv's who don't see quickly enough that I'm braking, I finally decided to put in a brake switch activated by the pedal instead of by hydraulic pressure. Checking the wiring diagram, I saw that the stop lamp switch illuminated the taillights by connecting wires 17 and 22, with 17 going to the A4 connection on the fuse box, 22 to the #5 terminal on the relay box. I. experimented with connecting the 2 terminals, and that lit the brake lights. I ran 2 wires from those locations into the cockpit for my switch. I was all set to finish the job, but then I got greedy. I decided to also wire my 3rd brakelight, which hadn't been working, into the circuit. Couldn't get it to light, but when I connected it to another hot wire, it would work. By way, I also have the small reflectors converted to brake/;turn signal lights.
>
>  Locking onto the 3rd light problem, I dithered around with other ways to connect it, none of them working. Then the taillights quit altogether. Thinking I had been trying to draw too much current, I checked all fuses, including the extra one to protect the taillight wiring. All were fine. I disconnected the 3rd tailight. No joy.
>
>  All other lights fine. I'm out of ideas and would appreciate suggestions  Thanks in Advance - John Close