Tail Light Problems

[blmiller8]

My tail light will illuminate when you push the rear break and pull the front brake with headlight off, but if the head lights are on it will just stay bright and you cant tell when I am using my breaks. I tried replacing the back break light switch and the front hand break assembly to see if either of them was the cause but still doing the same thing. Not sure if anyone can shed some light on the situation.

[rphillips]

Somehow your tail circuit & turn signal circuit are touching, probably in the bulb or in the socket where the bulb makes the connection. Try cheepest easiest things first, put in a new 1157 bulb

[blmiller8]

Somehow your tail circuit & turn signal circuit are touching, probably in the bulb or in the socket where the bulb makes the connection. Try cheepest easiest things first, put in a new 1157 bulb

Forgot to mention I have tried a couple of different bulbs. I will look over the wiring again to make sure that none of the wire insulation has rubbed off.

[LarryA_Texas]

My tail light will illuminate when you push the rear break and pull the front brake with headlight off, but if the head lights are on it will just stay bright and you cant tell when I am using my breaks. I tried replacing the back break light switch and the front hand break assembly to see if either of them was the cause but still doing the same thing. Not sure if anyone can shed some light on the situation.

Sounds to me like the wires for tail light and brake light are reversed. If it's on bright with the lights on, then you'd never see the brake light because its mis-wired to the dim. Check all those connections carefully and if that doesn't do it remove all the wires and reconnect them one at a time to make sure each circuit is correct.

Those two filament bulbs are made to go in only one way, so the correct contact hits the correct pin in the socket. Notice the locking pins are not level with each other, one is lower...but it's possible to force them in the wrong way. That would do it, too.

Finally, you have power from a short somewhere or a misconnected wire getting to the bright side of that bulb when the lights are on. That will require careful troubleshooting with a wiring diagram and circuit tester.

[blmiller8]

I think its a short in the wiring. I tore the bike down to frame for the third time tonight I am going to look over all of the wiring and make sure its not. I think you might be right about the wiring being reversed though because it is not a stock taillight it might be reversed.