VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Electrical - 12 volt Driver side brake light not working

Fall of last year i bought a 1951 Chevy Styleline Deluxe 4 door and fr some reason the driver's side brake light doesn't work at all. The driver's side turn signal works and the running lights work but the brake light doesn't. A friend and I tried to fix it today, we tried swapping the bulbs between lights and that wasn't the issue, the turn signal works so the wire isn't the issue, we wired the 2 rear lights together running off of the passenger side lights which did light up the brake light then so we know its not the socket but of course then the passenger side turn signal would blink both lights so thats no good. Really have no idea why every other light works. Has anyone else run into this issue and or found a solution for this?

Probably a bad turn signal switch.

You think the turn signal switch is stopping the signal from the brakes getting to the rear light? Cause both signals work and the passenger side brake light works too, just the driver's brake light doesn't

I would check the wires on the t/s switch the power from the brake light switch goes to the t/s switch then out to the right brake light on a left turn and the switch then sends the power through the flasher to the left rear.

Is the one that doesn't operate properly much brighter than the other one? If so, you may have a grounding issue with the one not functioning correctly. i had a similar problem and corrected it by attaching a ground wire directly to the socket, then grounding that directly to the body. Hope this helps.

Another suggestion - have a good look into the interior of the light socket itself. These things were a real mickey-mouse design in that the least little bit of foreign material or corrosion down in there will make the bulb do funny things, like not work, flicker, go on but dim, work great one day and do nothing the next etc. After sitting all winter, each spring I would take a piece of fine sandpaper wrapped around a small dowel and sand the inside of all sockets, then lightly sand the metal exterior of each bulb, and reinstall everything. No more light problems!!

I agree with the bad switch theory. The brake light power goes to the switch. When the signals are not on, the brake light power is fed through the switch to both sides . When the right blinker is on, the switch disconnects the brake signal and connects the blinker signal to the light. So the switch is the logical culprit.