I went to get my car inspected, and the guy told me I had a tailight out. Passenger side, inner tail light. So I'm like okay...I'll replace the bulb.

So today, for some reason, I decided to check it out myself, rather than just change the bulb right away. I had my sis press on the brake, and sure enough, the inner light on the passenger side wasn't lighting up...well kinda (you'll see lol)

So I pull off the tail light, and before pulling off the bulb, I pulled the the bulb and connector (bulb still on) out of the tailight housing. Then I told her hit the brake. The bulb has two PAIRS of support wires, and TWO tungsten filaments. So basically, there are two separate filaments in the bulb that should light up. On this bulb, however, only ONE filament lit up. I was like hmm...maybe the other is damaged? So I pulled off the bulb, and put a brand new one in, and told her to hit the brake again. Guess what? Again, only ONE filament lit up.

At that point, I pulled out the right bulb, and looked at it, and both filaments were lighting up fine on that one. So this prob is isolated to just the inner light... and it's obviously not the bulb, since I tried a new one, and the same thing happened. I have no idea what would make one filamant light, and the other not. Anyone ever have this happen?

Thanks
~Ramy

 

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...ght=tail+light

 

^Try post no. 3 in that thread.

 

Cleaning the contacts? lol. Wow...such simple stuff. Will do Kento.

BlueRex and I discussed that thread quickly before he posted it...and I learned that a short causes fueses to blow (lol) but a bad ground = higher resistance --> less current flow --> dim light. But here's what we weren't sure of. The 2nd filament doesn't even glow AT ALL. Not even slightly. So it's one on, one off. He pointed out to me that maybe the two filaments were separate...one comes on for dim light, and the other is for brake light. The dim lights seem to be fine (from outside...didn't pull out the bulbs and look). If this is the case, then could it be just the brake filament that's not working, and hence a short in the brake line just to that bulb?

Last ?...any suggesstions what to clean the contacts w/? Wire brush? Alcohol?

 

Wire brush should work fine.