The gaskets on the front side lights needed renewal so I took out both fixtures, and now wish I hadn’t. The wiring on my car consists of a red wire, a green wire and a yellow wire. The green(which of course is normally the color for a ground wire) is connected to the larger rear facing bulb. The red wire is connected to the smaller front facing bulb. Both of these wires have bullet type disconnectors. The yellow wire is the ground wire and is attached to the body of the light fixture with a ring connector on the other end. Ok! This would tell me the ring connector needs to go over one of the three screws which hold the light body to the fender. Well, this sounds simple, but you need to be Houdini to do it. That’s problem no. 1. The other problem is then larger bulb will not light on either side light. Since I haven’t yet been able to connect the ring ground wire to a screw and mount the fixture, I attached the ground to a screw and the body while leaving the fixture hanging, just to test the lights. The small bulb toward the front lights and also blinks when activating the directional. I thought the manual showed the larger rear light as the directional bulb.
So, any hints for managing the new gasket, putting the ring ground over a screw, sliding the fixture horizontally into the recess and successfully screwing the fixture on? Once the fixture is in the recess it’s difficult to ensure that the ring ground is still over the screw.
And why the large bulb toward the rear isn’t lighting, I have no idea. The fuse is of course good.
Since I don’t drive the car at night, I’m not sure the larger bulb ever worked.
Long story, I know, but I am really aggravated right now. LOL.
Have the wires long enough that you can have the light fixture hanging while you reach inside to connect the bullets. The ground wire should connect to a bullet and not under a screw on the lamp housing. If in doubt connect the ground wire to a screw someplace inside the bonnet. I have found most light problems are from bad grounds. I did not trust the lamp housings to find a ground through the mounting screws. I added ground wires soldered directly to the steel bulb socket.
Use a volt meter to measure the housing potential when you try to light the bulb. If you see more that .1V you have a bad ground.
Thanks for reply. I’ll definitely take your suggestion and ground to a screw inside the bonnet. I’m still stumped on why the large, rear bulbs won’t light on either sidelight.
I have added the pic above. The black wire to small bulb is as expected. The green wire to large bulb I believe originally would be black. The yellow ground wire I expect is a later addition. Also the wire the green wire connects to is black/green. Could that really be a ground wire? Another power wire for the large bulb missing?
Gary, I am pretty well confused here, especially on colors. You list your car as 1967, so I assume it is negative ground. You start out saying green is usually ground, yet I see many of the green wires being positive after the fuse. I notice no green grounds on the diagrams. I agree with what you say, the small bulb would be parking light, the large the flasher, but you said your small bulb is flashing. At your photo post, you say the green wire to the large bulb would originally be black. Why, per diagram it seem to me it should be green/white. And you say the harness wire feeding the large bulb at the bullet is black/green, it looks like green/white, as it should be.
But, getting to the point, per Haynes Diagram best I read and know, large bulb is flasher and fed by harness wire green/white. Yours is. Small bulb is park light and fed by red harness wire, which yours is. But your small light is flashing with turn signals. Sound like you have wire mixed up elsewhere. Maybe at bonnet connector, maybe at headlight terminal strip. Up to you where you wish to swap.
Tom
Well, you’re not as confused as I am. Yes, the car is a 67 negative ground. I’m just getting familiar with Jag wiring and was referring to what color we in the USA normally associate with ground wires, green. I now see that is totally untrue with these cars. Yes, the wire feeding the large bulb is not black/green. My error.
I’m just starting to find the wiring diagrams and will try to see where the flasher wires could be mixed up as you said.
Gary xkedata has a lot of sort options for photos. Here are a couple that might be applicable in case it helps. I got to them by sorting to electrical photos for Series 1
