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Brake Light electrikery


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Hi Folks,

last week I had a brake light go pop on my TR4A. I replaced this quite easily.   On Friday the same bulb stopped working.

Today I took the bulb out and found it was in as new condition.

I pulled the wires at the back of the bulb holder and the red wire dropped off.

This is when the fun started - arrrrggghhhhhh

There are two wires that go into a simple insulated plate (plastic or paxolin).

The wires are held in place by a little crimped brass contact.  BIG Question - where can you get new contacts.

It is not easily possible to re-use these contacts.

So I hunted in my spares box and found an old paxolin based contact.plate. The older plates have three keyway guides. This puts the contacts in the correct orientation.

Sadly if you have a later bulb socket it may only have two slots - cheap cheap cheap.   So off with the 3rd guide.

Now to the electrikery 

The brake lights go through the Ignition switch.

On test the bulb looked dim. I took a volts reading = 10.5V...  The battery was nearer 12.5V - odd!!

After a bit of running around I found that the coil was drawing the volts down. Unplug the coil and the brake lights volts pop up to 12.5V  Except the off side which was at 11.5/

I have a fancy little box that allows the brakes lights to be repeated on the dash. There was a dry joint on the board.

Eventually I got it all working again but why isn;t it straight forward.

So if you are taking volts readings from the battery and they appear low then check that another service is not dragging it down.

Why do we have light fittings with different alignment facilities - different keyways etc

AND where can I get some contacts for the base of the bulbs.

 

Roger

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I did put them in theTR5/6 And MG catalogues.   .........

not currently available though.  Single one is available

https://www.moss-europe.co.uk/terminal-kit-bulb-socket-twin-contact-37h5459.html?assoc=109116

 

drill out a 3/32 brass rivet?

Peter W

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Find a small brass washer, strip the wire back approx 3mm, pass through washer, fold over wires to be flat & solder to washer, file to get a smooth dome.

Bob.

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2 hours ago, BlueTR3A-5EKT said:

I did put them in theTR5/6 And MG catalogues.   .........

not currently available though.  Single one is available

https://www.moss-europe.co.uk/terminal-kit-bulb-socket-twin-contact-37h5459.html?assoc=109116

 

drill out a 3/32 brass rivet?

Peter W

Hi Pete,

 that number googles some good returns - thanks.

Hi Bob,

           if they were not available then I would be sorting out the rivets and washers.

Roger

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