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So ; the other night while backing into a spot at our local cruise night, my buddy corvette guys tell me the third brake light on my 88 convertible is out. Not ever being behind my car this was news to me.
No big deal, just change a bulbs...so I thought. On closer inspection, I see there is three bulbs in this cluster. The other four taillights are working just fine, so Why isn't the third light working. It seemed odd to me that all three would go out at once, so I did a bit of investigating. No power to the cluster....... Hum.
Get under the dash and pulled out the stop switch and find that there is a separate wire going to this light. Jumped the orange wire (power) and the blue wire and on came the third brake light. Switch of course was no good. A trip to NAPA and $15 and we were back in business.
I pass this on to anyone of interest. I was unaware that a separate wire was used for this set-up. I almost wasted a bunch of time and effort taking the assembly out and changing the bulbs.
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e
Lifetime Member
Send PMLanoka Harbor, NJ - USA
Joined: 12/21/2006
Posts: 2191
Vette(s): 1975 metallic blue coupe with t-tops,L48, t/t steering, black leather interior. 1990 L98, white/red leather interior, auto,a/c
good point on doing a thorough check before swapping out bulbs. as you said you never go back and unless someone points it out you may not know so all three bulbs could be out. my 90 has 5 bulbs in it and each bulb is about $8.00. a couple were burnt out so i replaced all of them when i took it apart. was a pain as the bulbs are really small and broke one just putting it in. two bulbs burnt out again and when i repainted the car and had everything apart i bought a strip of led lights and wired them in. shouldnt burnt out now for a long time to come.
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I changed to LED bulbs too but then the flasher timing was messed up because the OEM one requires a load to flash properly. Grote makes one that is load independent and solved all the flashing problems. I don't have the number on me but I marked it down if anyone is curious or check their site, and you should find the part number there.
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e
Lifetime Member
Send PMLanoka Harbor, NJ - USA
Joined: 12/21/2006
Posts: 2191
Vette(s): 1975 metallic blue coupe with t-tops,L48, t/t steering, black leather interior. 1990 L98, white/red leather interior, auto,a/c
396c4 said: I changed to LED bulbs too but then the flasher timing was messed up because the OEM one requires a load to flash properly. Grote makes one that is load independent and solved all the flashing problems. I don't have the number on me but I marked it down if anyone is curious or check their site, and you should find the part number there.
didn't have any problem with mine as i only used it for the third brake light. as mine is above the rear window it's possible it was wired differently.
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THE DYNAMIC DUO
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Free Member
Send PMMontgomery, AL - USA
Joined: 4/19/2012
Posts: 50
Vette(s): 1986 Gray/Blue Z-51 Coupe & 1998 Pewter Coupe
Hi Caladonia Brian
Wish I had seen your post earlier.
Had a similar problem and went looking for a relay or solid state circuit- after a while it hit me that maybe it was the brakelight switch and it was. Also had some bad bullbs.
Was suprised how inexpensive the switch was- maybe it is used on multiple models of that era.
Fred in Alabama
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B
I THOUGHT about adding a third brake light. It LOOKED simple. Just take off the painted fiberglass trim above the rear window and either replace the whole trim piece with the light or just bore a coupla holes in the old trim piece and add the light.
NOPE! That trim piece is ON there! I don't think dynamite would remove it! In fact I had the car painted before I replaced the back glass. I just planned on trading out the aforementioned trim piece. But I really don't think it can be done without breaking the rear glass.
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in Forum: C4 Electrical, Body and Interior
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