ImBatman

I got both the brake lights and the Hazards working last night! :hurray: That means that all of my exterior lighting is now functional which is a lot more than I can say that when I bought the car. I removed the capacitor from the brake light harness and both the brakes as well as the Hazards began working.

Last night I also played with my multi meter a little to get more familiar with how it works. I checked the voltake to all my fuse slots and they all checked fine except one. The really small fuse port at the bottom of the panel that I think is for the dash lights showed no voltage. :confused: Now I don't have the fuse in it and the switch was off so is this correct or should there be 12v going there as well?

ROD NOCK

Bravo! Persistance pays off every time! Good work on your lights!
The 'little fuse' you're refering to is the dash lights fuse. No power to this fuse until headlight switch is activated. :yesnod:

Enad

Congratulations. :hurray:

It won't be long before you are answering the electrical questions. :yesnod:

Dane

Jim Shea

I thought that my 75 was the only one where Bubba installed a capacitor across the brake light switch. I wonder if there was a service bulletin from Chevrolet or if installing a capacitor across the brake light switch was some sort of a urban fix.

Mine was installed with those common blue inline wire splicers. The ones with the small sharp V knives inside that snap over a wire to splice into it. I can't imagine that the Corvette assembly plant would use those type of splicers. Also, there are no capacitors shown in the Corvette wiring diagrams.

It seems that after 25 plus years, the capacitor gives out and causes the brake lights to stop working. (I am still trying to figure out how a capacitor in parallel with the brake light switch can just cause the lights to not work. I guess I should have taken more EE classes instead of my ME courses.)

I wonder how many other Vettes have capacitors lurking across the brake light switch wiring (the white and orange wires) underdash?

ImBatman

Hey Jim our Bubba's must be related! :lol: :smash: That is exactly how mine was put together.

ROD KNOCK, Thanks for the info on the fuse. I was hoping that that was the case. I have not checked the voltage with the light switch on yet but will this afternoon.

Dane, I have definately learned a lot and owe most of it to the guys on this forum. Hopefully I can pass own the knowledge. What is the old saying? "Knowledge learned and not passed on is knowledge lost".

Thanks again for everyone's help. I will keep everyone posted on my progress. :cheers:

Wade :seeya

RLaFarge

Hmmm, I am sitting here thinking about why a cap would be needed there? Was it across each side of the switch or going from one side of the switch to ground? Most of the time caps are used a filters, they shunt part of the A/C wave form or the ripple in a D/C current(the whining sound in a car stereo when you rev the engine) off to the ground. I wonder what they were trying to accomplish putting it across the brake light switch? :confused:

Jim Shea

Mine was definately across the orange and white wires. Not to ground. I haven't noticed any snapping or other noise since I removed the capacitor from the brake light switch.

I mentioned a while back that I also had a 0.47 mfd capacitor on the turn signal flasher terminals over behind the passenger dash panel. This one looked like it might have been placed there by the factory.

stingry

Probably too much information but I lost my pencil protector and had nothing to do......:)

Cap shorts out. Electrolytics do this. Most have a life of 7-10 years. usually you will see the effects in TVs when they give a nice "pop" when they die. Eseentially what happens (Getting into the laws of physics now) in a capacitor is you have two electrical plates (usually foil in small caps) separated by an insulator (electrolytic paste in cap). Eventually the paste dries and the plates arc out between each other. The more that it happens then the more damage that occurs to the electolytic and eventually you have a nice "fused" capacitor when the two plates essentially weld themsleves to each other.

If you ever have an electrical problem and there is a cap involved replace it. They are cheap and account for at least 60% of problems in electronics. Unfortunately the caps usually kill a few sensitive components such as ICs on the way out.

I would guess that most of Corvette radios (mine included) have the original capacitors. Mine sounds like :U

Now my head hurts...... :rofl:


[Modified by stingry, 8:05 PM 9/18/2003]


[Modified by stingry, 8:05 PM 9/18/2003]


[Modified by stingry, 8:06 PM 9/18/2003]

Enad

I might be rong but I think the cap is to limit the arcing across the switch points not to keep that AM band clean :D

Dane