liscense plate light going nuts.HELP!!!

[green66]

my license plate light is flickering on and off every time you move the tailgate handle, or you push on the tailgate. As far as i know there are no wires inside the tailgate. The wires to the light run up from underneath. I tried re-tightening the ground. didn't help. Seems like the tailgate is creating some ground or something. What do i do? traced it back, and nothing seems to be touching anywhere. all my other lights work fine.

 

[bert]

You are probabley correct, it is grounding through the tail gate. Run a dedicated ground wire from your light and ground it directly to the frame.

 

[green66]

There is already a ground wire there. It's bolted down. Thats what's throwing me off.

 

[BoltBuster]

Is the tail gate light ground attached to the tail gate or back to the frame or wagon body?

It sounds like its on the tail gate. If it is it may help to take the tail gate off and clean pivots at the bottom where it swings. If they are worn and lose then thats the problem. Sounds like your not making a good connection to the truck ground through the tail gate and its picking it up where ever it can.


Something off the wall.. replace the bulb... when some filaments fail they swing around in the bulb allowing contact at suddle times. Its easy cheap and what you should try first, along with cleaning and checking the socket for the bulb for lose connections and failed solder connections inside and clean contact.

All the Best..

 

[green66]

That must be it. It is grounded to the license plate holder on the tailgate. There is some play there. I can extend that wire, and re-ground it to the frame. correct? Is there a certain place i can ground it there?

 

[BoltBuster]

As long as your truck has a good body ground, then almost any where should do fine thats clean of paint. Try to keep it high enough from water or potential corrosion when driving.

Again I would change the bulb just to keep you from doing more than you should. A filament doesn't take to good to a tail gate slamming and plate cover flopping around during daily driving.

 

[green66]

Gronded it to the frame. Problem solved. Thanks again.