ren

Does anyone have any pictures of how/where their rear harness is grounded? I actually thought that my 63 rear harness easy to install, but I obviously did something wrong. All four taillights work fine. Only the drivers side brake lights work. The license plate light doesn't work. I am positive that the bulbs are correct. I have each side grounded to the light and to the frame. What could be wrong?

67-427ci

These are pictures of my 67 Coupe rear wiring. I am not sure if it is the same as a 63. If your tail lights work, the ground is probably OK. You may want to check the connector at the dash harness and/or the turn signal connector. Good luck.
Roy

There are 2 ground wires (black) in the center and I believe one at the left & right tail lights. These ground wires travel through the rear harness, connect to the dash harness, and then to ground

ren

Thanks for the great pic. It looks very similiar to mine. I assumed that because the lights worked that the harness connection was OK. I re-check everything AGAIN tonight.

BLee

Do yourself a favor and add another ground or 2 to the rear. The way the factory grounded the rear harness isn't the best engineering on our cars. It won't be noticeable or difficult. I added one on each side and ran it from the tail light mounting studs to one of the unused holes on the back of the frame. It takes 4 ring terminals, about 2 feet of wire, and about 10 minutes and I won't have to worry about the rear lights or gas gauge giving me problems due to an intermittent ground. JMO

BL

JohnZ

Not sure about a '63, but from '64-'67, ALL the rear lamps (and the fuel sender) ground through a common wire that comes forward in the body harness and ends up as a pigtail coming out of one of the radio connector cavities, with a ring terminal that's screwed to the bottom of the lower instrument panel reinforcement; there's no ground anywhere under the rear of the car.

ren

I'll check my Doc Rebuild diagram when I go home. I did not connect any wires that are related to the radio. I'm not going to use it. Hoped I could tap into the power for my Alpine unit from the radio connector. If in fact that could is my problem, why do I have taillights?

bweaver999

Just looked at my Dr Rebuild diagram, follow the black wire (upper right in the rear body connector) it winds up attached at the radio.

BLee's idea sounds like a good one.

Curious, how do the clips attach? They appear to be on the back side of the body so they can't be screwed on. Plan to take a close look at mine when I replace the gas tank sender. I know my wires are not using the correct mounts, not sure they are even there.

ren

I don't think that I could connect the factory harness to my radio even I wanted to. A prior owner installed an aftermarket audio sound unit in the car. The old harness was cut and spliced to accommodate the aftermarket radio. Is there any other place that I might be able to connect this capacitor to that would have the same effect?

stingrayl76

Try centering the turn signal lever. If it's not centered properly the switch won't make contact with both stop lamp circuits. Also make sure that the connector on the steering column that comes from the turn signal switch is pushed together tightly with its mate.

I don't have a wiring diagram for a 63, but the green wire in this connector shown below is the left brake lamp circuit as shown on a 65 diagram: