Rear Stop/tail/turn

[YoungPUP]

Due to the PO's custom paint and body work, I'm left with no taillight and only the rear turnsignals. I've switched those out for a set of fronts t/s and wired in a hoppy taillight converter from wally world. Somehow, i now have taillights, and  a right rear turnsignal thats so dim you can't tell its flashing unless you;re staring at it, and the left on doesnt do crap. LEds bulbs don't change anything, 1157;s don't change anything. The only thing left to do that i can think of is to try switching to a Heavy duty flasher, but don't think thatll fix it either. I know, Vague info, but any ideas?

[Brian]

I had no trouble at all doing this same thing.I didn't even have to change the flasher. If the PO did all that work I suggest you make sure you have a good ground connection. This would be simple enough to check by using a jumper cable or another piece of wire running from the light mount to the battery or frame ground connection by passing the fender all together. You should also double check your wiring for the hoppy. There is a link on this forum showing you exactly how to wire these.

[Blackduck]

+1 on the ground, if any other light comes on when you try either turns,tail or stop is a good indication that you have a ground fault. The current is using the other lights circut to get to ground.
This causes high resistance and low light output.
Brian's way is a quick and easy check.
Cheers Steve

[YoungPUP]

Ok the jumper shouldn't work?  the ground for the stock rear lights is run through the wiring harness, not the chassis mounts. Re checked the wiring (undid it all and started over again) ran a new rear harness ground directly to the battery instead of the stock one, and now none of the rear lights work at all. This is getting to be more of a hassle than its worth. May burn the money and buy a new rear fender rear half...

[Blackduck]

Sounding like there is damaged wires or connection, when you added the ground you may have moved the harness enough to break the connection.
Wiring can be "SO MUCH FUN"
Best to remove the rear harness and light and have a good look at it. If you have a multi meter check for continuity on the wires to the light fittings.
Check for power coming to the rear connector for brakes and taillight.
Cheers Steve

[Brian]

Where the molded multy plug fits at the fender joint is really tight and can easily pinch a wire. Did you notice if the fronts came on? If  you have the shop manual you will need find where you do or not have power by following the wiring schematic. All the wires are color coded. You may have blown the fuse for the tail lights. If I remember coreectly when I converted my rear lights I had to run two more wires back there adding another plug at that joint so it fit even tighter where I removed some that metal back there and bending some of it wider. That was last year without pictures of what I did my CRS disease is taking over. Don't give up, it's a free education. It is recommended that if you have saddle bags you install LED's as they won't get hot and melt your housings. I used the red LED's from superbrightled.com.

[Valkpilot]

Due to the PO's custom paint and body work, I'm left with no taillight and only the rear turnsignals. I've switched those out for a set of fronts t/s and wired in a hoppy taillight converter from wally world. Somehow, i now have taillights, and  a right rear turnsignal thats so dim you can't tell its flashing unless you;re staring at it, and the left on doesnt do crap. LEds bulbs don't change anything, 1157;s don't change anything. The only thing left to do that i can think of is to try switching to a Heavy duty flasher, but don't think thatll fix it either. I know, Vague info, but any ideas?

I've done this a couple of times and always needed to upgrade the flasher to either a heavy duty or electronic variable load.  Here's a write up that might help: http://www.barnettdh.com/taillights/taillights.htm  It was for a Honda Spirit, but the concept is identical and the color codes are similar if not the same.

For the running light hookup, I connect to the license plate light (brown wire) in the tail-light assembly.  That way there are no additional wires that have to run forward through the fender.

[YoungPUP]

The cause was my neighbors kid( indirectly)  He's been helping me work on the Valk as a way to learn mechanical, wiring, maintenance, etc. While reassembling the t/s cluster, he didn't check for wiring placment, and ended up pinching the whole harness for the left light.  That'll do it.  Thanks all for the help!

[Brian]

I am glad you found the problem yougpup.You didn't tell us you had helper. Yes there are alot of wires in that assembly especially when adding one more wire from each socket and connectors. Look at the education you just got. Tech school or your dealer wouldn't have taught this to you.

FYI, before I converted my 97 to this I had installed a national cycle lightbar that came with turn signals. My goal was to add more lights to the front and back so I left the stock turn signals on the front. Even with 3 turn signals on each side the OEM flasher worked and now with the LED's in the rear sockets the OEM is still working just fine as I believe the load it is seeing is still the same.
You may experience something different.