Hi! Newbe here and a proud owner of a '73 comet. Actually, it has 49k miles and just like a used 5 year old car. Well, the car was given to me for free and will be in about 6 months given to my daughter as her 1st car...My question I have is that the brake lights/turn signals and back up lights do not work. There is power to the brake light switch and to the hazard lights but after that there is no more power. All wires to the turn signal switch are dead at all times...front lights work and side lights work...I am guessing that the turn signal switch is bad and needs replacing...what do you guys/gals think? I just wonder why all that power would go thru the steering column and then to the lights? Thanks for your help...Jon
usually when a turn signal is out it is one of the bulbs... 1 fails, they all fail i dont know that the backup lights even work... mine dont lol
my backups do but i had to replace the neutral safety switch... went without for years before finding that was the problem, even when it still worked for letting the car start in park..
If nothing on the back of the car is working I would suspect a bad ground back there somewhere. Brake lights, t/s, and b/u lamps should be on different power circuits with a common ground. Then again you should have power after your switches.
I'm not 100% sure if these cars are equipped with them, but if there is a plug on the rear harness make sure it is plugged completely in and that it is not corroded. Hope this helps, -Scott H.
i had issues with my bulbs when i first got my maverick The rear buls have to be a certain bulb, with light and break light. when i replaced mine, and did not use the right bulbs, they would blow as soon as i turned on the lights. once i got the right bulbs put in, they worked fine. the brake lights on my car did not work either, and i replaced the brake light switch on the brake pedal and it fixed this. backup lights could be the same thing.. bad bulbs, or a broken wire. if i remember correctly, there isnt a wire harness plug in the back, but i ended up cutting all my wires and routed brand new wires when i was working on my lights problems. I rewired all my lights in the trunk from the drivers kick panel, before i found someone that said i was using the wrong bulbs. Lesson learned. good luck
as with all good projects i too ended up running new wires all around for my lights. make going off the diagram next time a bit more interesting
well since you didn't mention this and I always go with the K.I.S.S (keep it simple stupid) principle. Have you checked ALL of your fuses? Next thing is that like already said backup lights ar a seperate ciruit. For that I would check the backup light switch, I am not 100% sure where the backup light swith is located but from what one other person said it sounds like it may be part of the park/nuetral saftey switch on the Maverick. Brake lights I whould most definetly check/replace the switch that is mounted on the brake pedal. I just had to replace mine. My brakes were old and the pedal used to go about 1/2 to 3/4 the way to the floor before the brakes would engage. I had plenty of shoe left and the car always stopped great the pedal just had a lot of travel in it. Well when I finally wore the pads/shoes out and came time to replace the brakes I ended up replacing EVERY brake part in the car from master cyl, wheel cyl, hardware kit, shoes, adjusters the whol 9 yards,. Once that was done I have very little travel in the pedal anymore so from the pedal going so far down for so long it ruined the brake light switch. I had to put in another on. It cost about $8 at autozone. I would bet that a new Brake light switch will cure your brake light problem, the other issues sound like seperate issues that will have to be addressed as such
Thanks for all the reply...I should have let you know that the fuses are good, the brake light switch is good and there is power going to the hazard light switch, but nothing after the hazard switch. My theory is that if I replace the entire turn signal switch behind the steering wheel then it will work again...What do you think? All tail lights are new and ground looks great...There is just no power leaving the hazard switch at any time.....Thanks! Jon
my 72 mav had the same problem with the electronic mechanism in the steering colum.it clicked into position left and right.the flashers worked.break lights worked.but when i would signal left it would signal once every 3 minutes or so and the dash would stay stuck on every now and then.by process of elimination you will get it done. hope this helps aint to much to these cars after a while you kinda just begin to understand everything about them.
I am starting to think the 72 stering columns came with factory gremlins installed my left turn signal only blinks when the steering wheel is in certain positions.
I did finally figure out the problem and everything is now working great. Three problems. The fuse box connectors were rusty, the turn signal switch inside the steering column had bad wires and both tail light sockets looked like new, but were bad! Found most parts on Ebay and cost about $80 to fix.. Everything is right with the world. I learned that when you have a series of problems effecting 1 thing it makes finfing the solution much harder. Thanks for everyone's help!! Jon
