How to wire a single wire brake/tail light.

[mr110]

Hi All,

I picked up a pretty nice tail light at a swap meet last week. I just cannot figure out out to get it to wire. It has a self ground through the housing and only one wire coming out the back.

Do i splice in to that wire, i tried that with some test leads and i got it to turn on but it did not intensify when the brake was pulled. So i bought a single contact dual filamet bulb and still the same problem.

Am I missing anything? How does a single wire brake light work and more than just a running light?

Thanks.

 

[Spider John]

You have to wire in a resistor for the running light circuit, then connect your brake light downstream of the resistor (between the resistor and the light).

 

[mr110]

do you have any examples of this or a picture?

the closest thing i was able to find was something like this but its for a LED set up.[/IMG]


the point on the top goes to the light and each other wires on the bottom to the brake and parking light sockets.

 

[Spider John]

That's the ticket. Those diodes prevent the circuits from back-feeding each other, but in most cases they aren't necessary.