Wiring Help Brake/rear turn (1 Viewer)

[colesdad45]

I hate to do it as I'm sure the answer is in here somewhere, but with the holidays I am short on time for searching. So heres what I got, GM column with EZ harness, 4 wire tail lights. Hooked up the battery for the first time today and did a little operational checks. Everything on the truck works first time GO, except I am having troubles with the tail lights. Everything is working but when I step on the brake both rear turn lights come on solid as well as the brake lights. I am using the "third brake" wire to run the brake lights. I can problably track it down but with all the different family get togethegrs next few days I have no garage time, and its gonna eat at me til I can get back out there. Any ideas?
From this .....

to this, in 2 years with a year dployment in between....

 

[colesdad45]

When you have Integrated Brake Lights on your vehicle the Turn Signal switch acts as a brain to control when the Lights in the rear are on constantly (braking) or flashing (turning) or a combination of both. The Turn Signal switch you use must be built to do this! If you are using a steering column out of a salvage yard that was originally in a vehicle that had separate Brake Lights then the switch will not work for Integrated Brake Lights.


does this make any sense to anyone? could this be the problem? my colum ncame out of 89ish suburban. that is taken from the painless instructions pg 33&34. http://www.painlessperformance.com/Manuals/10103.pdf
maybe i dont have the "white" wire capped and stored as in 10-7b and i still have it connected as in 10-7a. just thinking out loud wishing i had time to get to the garage.

 

[Pin_Head]

Not sure what you have there, but typically early cruisers (pre 75) and GM use the same bulb filament for brake and turn signals, so the lamp housing has two wires plus a ground. This is incompatible with the later lamp housings that have separate brake and turn bulbs (3 wires + ground). You can use a "4 wire to 5 wire" trailer light converter to make the later lamps work with the earlier wiring.

 

[colesdad45]

thanks Pin_Head, that rings a bell now. I think this is what I am looking for. ???
Hopkins/48 in. vehicle to trailer electronic tail light converter (48845) | Tail Light Converter | AutoZone.com

 

[colesdad45]

I am assuming I would just wire it opposite since i am going from integrated bulbs to seperate, and the adapter says seperate into integrated??????

 

[Pin_Head]

It is the inverse of what you want and I don't think that you can just reverse it.
Most trailers are 4 wire, so most converters are 5 wire to 4 wire. You want 4 wire to 5 wire.

 

[colesdad45]

By the looks of it this one doesnt really show specific direction of electricity flow.
3 to 2 Wire Converter [58240] - $10.80 : The Hitch Store
Maybe I am way over thinking this, but somebody else has had to of already been thru this.

 

[brew8]

wiring

I tried two differen't kits and did not like the result of either, even taking current flow into consideration, I had to change out the stock flasher because of the difference in load so I just added more lights to my custom bumper for the turn signals.

 

[cruiserhead]

I used the Valley T.L. Module 32250 works great!

 

[colesdad45]

thanks for the holiday help. i think im gonna try to run the autozone version of the Valley cause it cheap and right down the road. Here is the style light i am using.
TOYOTA LANDCRUISER FJ40 FJ45 Tail Lights Taillight NEW | eBay

 

[colesdad45]

Pin_head was correct, 5 wire to 4 wire will not work backwards. What to do now? Just run it the way it is? Everything works, just get turn lights when you press on the brakes, brake lights work also though.

 

[Pin_Head]

EZ thing to do would be to run the old style lamps. There is no real advantage to having different color turn and brake lamps.

 

[colesdad45]

Just so it is in here for others to find, I have figured out a way to run a 4 bulb tail light with a GM column and have the turn lights not illuminate with brakes applied. Turns out the brakes and rear turn lights share power source in the column. So easy fix is to supply +12v to the brake switch from something else other than the column and clip the brake light wiring from the GM column connector and hook the brake light output wire to the tail light wire. Makes sense, just being a first time wirer I am afraid to make cuts and need to do unnecessary splice to try stuff out.