'54 Hornet club coupe - rear parking lights won't light - why?

tinsled
tinsled Member, Confirm Email
in "How To" - Skills, mechanical and other wise

Working to make the '54 Hornet coupe roadworthy...

Managed to get all turning signal light work, also the brake lights do light. However the tail parking lights, nor the license plate light do not get any voltage. I suppose parking lights are connected to the post in center of the relay on firewall, see the photo. Hot wire would be the white wire on right, yellow in left is for horns. The center post will gets 6,5V when the knob in dash is turned to center position and the front parking lights will lit. The rear don't. The wiring in trunk area appears original, but is in good shape. Most of the wires in engine bay have been replaced by modern, but I cannot find where the wire harness to back of the car is connected?

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Best Answers

  • Geoff
    Geoff Senior Contributor
    Answer ✓

    That is the horn relay, nothing to do with the parking lights. The park lights are powered through the dash switch. Do you have a wiring diagram?

  • Glowplug
    Glowplug Expert Adviser
    Answer ✓

    A wiring diagram for your car can be found on my website https://hudsonrestoration1948-54.com/. There is NO COST to use the information.

    On the first page of the website, in the right lower corner, is a picture of a red 1954 Hudson convertible. Nearby is the word "manuals." Click on it. On the new page, there is a link to the 1954 body manual, which contains a wiring diagram.

  • Glowplug
    Glowplug Expert Adviser
    Answer ✓

    The wiring to the back of the car is run up the left A pillar, and these wires traverse to the back inside the headliner. They are again exposed as they come out at the top of the left rear wheel well and are plugged into the distribution block you found on your car. The wiring harness for the lights is plugged into the other side of that distribution block.

Answers

  • tinsled
    tinsled Member, Confirm Email

    Thanks! I have the wiring diagram but the resolution both in printed shop manual and on the web releases is poor, thus very hard to read...

    In the end of the day, the car has mostly original wire harness, thus the problem is hardly that the wires would be wrong connected. It's that there are corroded connections somewhere and may also be broken original wire in some spot. To tackle this I feel I'd need to know, where exactly the physical wire from the light switch runs to the trunk. I found a connector block behind the left side tail light, attached in the back side of the gas cap "cabinet". Four wires come to that block from front. I concluded that the leftmost is brake light, the one next to it is for turning signals, but to the two remaining on right side of the block there's no current ever whatever we do with the dash switches...

  • tinsled
    tinsled Member, Confirm Email
    https://openforum.hetclub.org/discussion/comment/254947#Comment_254947

    Thank you Glowplug!

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