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Tail Lights wiring

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A

als

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In getting my 76 Midget ready to be blasted with crushed walnut shells to remove all of the paint (no, really...) I noticed that the tail light assembly is installed in such a way so that it is electrically above ground. Can someone tell me why that is so. I can't figure out why that would be needed unless the designers were worried about excessive voltage drop

Thanks
Al /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/canpatriot.GIF
 
Hello Al,

I don't understand what you are asking? Do you mean the lamp housing is insulated from the body? Whether it is or not would have no effect on voltage drop.

Alec
 
piman - yes, that is what I mean. The tail lights are isolated and do not get the ground connection from the body of the car, there is a ground wire (black) to the harness. One reason might be that the lights are connected by the headlight and/or the turn signal relay switching to the ground wire rather than to the hot lead.

Re voltage drop, I wondered if the four bulbs in the two units would cause too much voltage drop getting the ground from the car body. Probably not, it was jus a thought.

I am actually away from home for a week or two, and have not had a chance to put a meter to the setup to figure it out.

Thanks
Al /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/canpatriot.GIF
 
Hi Al, you are correct, the ground for the taillights comes from the grounding point just inside the trunk. That's not so unusual to ground the lights to a common grounding point somewhere away from the housing, I've seen it on other cars too. As far as voltage drop, unless they have some unusually thin wire, it's not going to make much difference where the lights get a ground connection. I think BL did try to minimize voltage drops to the taillights since there are two wires carrying the taillight power from the front of the car. One goes to each taillight.
 
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