Brake Lights Suddenly Stopped Working

[l008com]

As far as I know, everything was working fine before an hour ago...

I got some very nice 3157 LED bulbs in the mail from superbrightleds. I just got one red and one white, I wanted to test them out and make sure I was happy with the color and brightness before I replaced all 6 rear bulbs. (the color and brightness were both fantastic btw).

So I tried the LED in the top socket, then in the middle socket. I was trying with the lights lit dim, then lit bright. Somewhere in this process, the brake lights stopped working. So the lights come on, and the blinkers also work. But when you hit the brake pedal, only the 3rd brake light comes on. With the truck on or off, that's all you get.

I have to admit, even now, I'm a little unsure as to which bulbs are suppose to come on when. But NO red lights come on when I hit the brake pedal (except the 3rd brake light) now. The first thing I did was put the regular bulbs back, but that didn't help. I also checked fuse #12 under the hood, and #51 under the back seat, as they seemed to be the only brake light related fuses, but everything looked fine. Not that this would have blown a fuse anyway. We're talking about bulbs that use significantly less power, the exact opposite of what would pop a fuse.

But still, somehow I messed something up, and I have no idea what. But the truck isn't drivable like this and it's now my sole vehicle so I'm kind of stuck!

 

[SnowBlazer]

First off, were your hands gloved when installing/reinstalling the halogen bulbs. If you touch the halogen with bare hands, the oil on your hands will mix with the gas in the bulb and burn them out.

Also, I do believe the rear brakes or signal lights require CK style LED's to function properly. You can't stick just a normal 3157 in there.

Also, make sure you have 3157 and not 3057's. 3057's are single action bulbs made for other platforms that only require the bulb to do one action i.e. reverse lights.

Hopefully this helped, if not, the issue would be above my knowledge.

 

[l008com]

UPDATE: fuse #34 was the problem! Under the back seats. I hadn't checked that one, but after I made this post, I started looking for answers on google and found a useful video.

I'm still a little unsure how I managed to burn it in the first place, given that the LED, when lit for brake light use, only uses 0.15 amps. But either way, it's fixed for now and hopefully it stays that way. I still plan on replacing all 6 bulbs with more of these, they are really vivid and bright and the colors look great!


Can someone explain the FULL function of each of the four red bulbs, just so I'm 100% sure on what's supposed to be lit up, and when?

Also these bulbs aren't halogen at all, are they? Aren't they just regular incandescent bulbs?

Also, these LEDs are directional. Meaning when you install them, there's a 50% chance they won't work, and you pop them out, spin them around, reinsert, and they work. When they are installed backwards, would they cause a short? Seems unlikely but could that have been it? If so, it's going to take a lot of fuses to install all four bulbs.

Also, I only had an LED on one side, and a regular bulb on the opposite side. Would THAT have somehow cause the fuse to burn? I don't see how but maybe? Somehow?

 

[Trkdrvremt]

Did you get the CK leds? If not you're just going to keep blowing fuses..

 

[l008com]

They are not CK. But they bulbs also worked at first, until they blew. How could that be if the truck needs CK bulbs?

 

[dmanns67]

Not sure what SnowB is talking about, but yes all of the bulbs are incandescent, NOT halogens. Also, there are NO gases inside of a halogen bulb, but a filament and oil from your hands cannot seep through the glass. HIDs however do have gases/salts inside. The oil from your hands could damage/break/cause premature failure, the glass of a halogen or HID due to the oils heating up from the heat coming from the bulb. That is why you should wipe down the glass of a halogen or HID with alcohol prior to installing.

Just because you flew the fuse, does not mean it has to do with normal operational running amps. I have blown the fuse for the driver's side tail light because one of my 194 LEDs in my license plate lights had failed internally and caused a short which blew the fuse. Just the nature of cheap LEDs.

The bulb that you had installed and blew the fuse, have you reinstalled it? Did it blow another fuse? If so, try another LED in that same position to see if the fuses blow. I never messed with replacing the tail light bulbs with LEDs, I just bought IPCW LED tail lights. Plug and play with resistors already built-in.

Installing LEDs 180 out would not cause a fuse to blow. You have a 50/50 chance of installing the LED right the first time. I have done it and have never blown a fuse. I also do not see how having an incandescent installed at the same time as an LED would blow a fuse either. You do have resistors installed correct or did you pick up a flasher module?

As far as the brake light functionality, the top bulb in each tail light is your running light and brake light. The center bulbs are your turn signals which will need resistors to prevent the hyper flash, and of course the bottom bulbs are your reverse lights.

 

[l008com]

The bulb that you had installed and blew the fuse, have you reinstalled it? Did it blow another fuse? If so, try another LED in that same position to see if the fuses blow. I never messed with replacing the tail light bulbs with LEDs, I just bought IPCW LED tail lights. Plug and play with resistors already built-in.

I believe I had it working as a running light in the top, then a blinker in the middle. And the more I think about it, it kind of makes sense that my issue is non CK bulb in a CK socket. Because it would have worked one way in each socket, but not the other, depending on the orientation. I couldn't test as thoroughly as I'd like because I had no one helping me, so I had to use running lights, blinkers/hazards to test. Which is perfect for testing trailer lights but the truck's lights are just a tad too complicated.

I think I need to first go buy a bunch more fuses, then confirm for sure that my sockets are CK, and then see if I can convert these bulbs. Because they are really kick ass bulbs, and they don't have anything similar on this site that is CK... which seems crazy to me, if the only difference is the order of the pins. It would be so minor to make them both ways.

...the top bulb in each tail light is your running light and brake light. The center bulbs are your turn signals...

Do does this mean that the middle bulbs only ever work in their "bright" mode?

 

[SnowBlazer]

On that note, I'll explain....

The words halogen and incandescent are thrown around interchangeably around here. It also stems from my emergency veichle lighting experiance handed down from my uncle (professional installer). Was it 100% correct, no but ok bake yourself look better/smarter.

Also, I have installed incandescent (since I can't use the word halogen) bulbs without nitrile gloves and have jacked them due to the oils on my skin. Maybe you have other results but my friend at AL Sera Chevrolet will not install auto bulbs without nitriles. Just food for thought.

The call out was unnecessary....

 

[l008com]

Ok so it does appear that the truck does have CK wired sockets and the bulbs are not CK. Now I'm really liking these bulbs, and I can't find anything comparable that is CK compatible. What to do?

So here's what I'm thinking. Couldn't I pretty easily cut the wire bundle that plugs into the circuit board that holds the bulbs, and splice it back together in the right order to make the bulb sockets non-CK? That should work easily right? ASSUMING there are actually no electronics on that circuit board other than the connector and the three sockets? Anyone know, or have an old one they can open up and take pics of?

Also, if this plan could work, I could actually try to find some connectors and make a little mini harness to swap the leads without cutting in to the trucks harness. Thoughts?

 

[Matt]

There's a thread by BlazingTrails to mod your boards to quad brake/turn that I think also removes the need for the CK bulb: http://gmtnation.com/forums/threads/gmt-360-quad-tail-lights-modification.11821/

I don't know what happened to the photos though.

Also, May03LT has you tube videos on it as well.

 

[gpking]

@l008com - Finding CK bulbs is pretty difficult. I found it much easier to buy the bulbs I like, and modify the pins to work in the CK sockets.

Here's what I did since the base of these bulbs was glued on:

(Identify the polarity of the pins using a power source, like a small battery)

Works great. No need to buy new bulbs.

These are great $20 bulbs, btw. I highly recommend them.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ML7G5X6/?tag=gmtnation-20

 

[MAY03LT]

Yeah due to the pin placement in the tail light board sockets rewiring won't get the job done. Gpkings method looks like the closest thing next to modding yer boards.

 

[Wooluf1952]

Just to add fuel to the fire, from WikipediA:

"A halogen lamp, also known as a tungsten halogen, quartz-halogen or quartz iodine lamp, is an incandescent lamp that has a small amount of a halogen such as iodine or bromine added. The combination of the halogen gas and the tungstenfilament produces a halogen cycle chemical reaction which redeposits evaporated tungsten back onto the filament, increasing its life and maintaining the clarity of the envelope. Because of this, a halogen lamp can be operated at a higher temperature than a standard gas-filled lamp of similar power and operating life, producing light of a higher luminous efficacy and color temperature. The small size of halogen lamps permits their use in compact optical systems for projectors and illumination."

Also, I've read the same thing; Oils from your hands can cause hot spots on the Halogen bulbs, greatly reducing their lifespan. But, the oils don't go thru the glass and mix with Halogen gas.

 

[Sib]

 

[l008com]

Yeah due to the pin placement in the tail light board sockets rewiring won't get the job done.

I don't get this. The sockets themselves are the same, it's just a matter of which pin gets power for whatever function you are activating in the truck, is it not? So changing the wires that connect to the tail light should directly change which pins in the sockets do what. Am I missing some part of the equation?

 

[l008com]

Ok I did more research and now I get it. In short, shared ground.
But I also learned that I only need to change the top two, so I might look into modding two of the bulbs. And if that doesn't work, I'll see if I can mod the circuit board. The quad-light hack looks interesting, but I really don't have the time for mods like that at this time.

 

[Blckshdw]

Ok I did more research and now I get it.

This is a good habit to have

 

[l008com]

I'm hopefully going to be getting back to this soon. The lights I like are non-CK only so I'm thinking board mod is the way to go. Very few CK bulbs and most LED bulbs are kind of shit. Not bright enough, and barely any difference between lit and not lit. These specific ones I got from sueprbrightleds don't have either problem.

So on to modding the boards. I do have experience rewiring my boat, and it doesn't look too hard dealing with the wiring in these circuit boards. One thing I didn't see in any of the links, was a simple diagram that showed what you start with, and what you end with, so you can easily see what needs to be moved. Converting should be relatively easy. Even MAY03LT's youtube videos, I didn't actually see the directions. I may do the quad brake mod too while I'm in there, I haven't decided yet.

But before I get into any of that, these boards only seem to run $15 each on parts websites. I don't suppose anyone makes a mass produced tail light board that is wired by default for non-ck? For $30, I'd just buy a pair of those and forget the mods.

 

[Matt]

I don't suppose anyone makes a mass produced tail light board that is wired by default for non-ck?

No, you're SOL there.