License Plate Lights Wiring Help Needed

[scrapman]

Trying to get the lights to work for the license plate. Neither work, found that the wires were not connected to the plug. on the left side there is are two connectors, one has one brown wire, the other has two brown wires. On the right side there are two connectors, both with one brown wire and a clip. The wiring diagram in the service manual only showed one wire going to both.
Since there is only one place to connect one of the wires onto the plug, can someone shed some light (no pun intended) on how to correctly wire the license plate lights.
Rick

[Bo Mows]

Is this a GT? If so, there should be a lead wire (Green/Gray if original wire still intact) going to the left and the same color wire going from the left to the right. The brown wires are ground. Should be 1 for each side. Are you sure the 2 wires connected together on the left are brown? that should be your lead coming from the fuse panel (left top pole) and jumping to the right. Use a meter to ohm this wire back to the panel. The single brown on each are grounds that should be attached to the body. HTH

Bo

[markandson]

On a GT the brown wires go to tabs that are spot welded to the inside of the bumpers.

[scrapman]

Thanks Guys. I appreciate the info. Yes, the car is a GT - '71. The wires are all brown, did not see any others but will look further, a PO made a mess out of the wiring in the back end and I'm trying to get it sorted out. Knowing what to look for really helps. I will look for the tabs on the bumpers you indicated.
If the brown double wire on the left turns out to be from the use box, would I connect on to it and go to the right side light? Also, on the right there are two browns single wires.

Another question. Is it possible to simply run power from the parking light so that when the lights are switched on, the tag lights come on with them?

Thanks, Rick

[Bo Mows]

Well, it's already getting it's power from the headlight relay on the power side of the fuse panel. But you can jump it, but the left and right parking light has it's on L & R side power source from the fuse panel and your talking about putting 2 more lights on that fuse. The lic light has it's own fuse. You REALLY need to find a good wire diagram (JJ Wheatley) because it sounds like there are MORE wiring problems in your future. My $.02 worth. But yes if the 2 brown wires (brown are only suppose to be used for ground wires) are connected to the fuse panel, they are suppose to be jumped from the left light to the right.

Bo

[namba209]

Rick, before you start hooking up wires back there, may I suggest you get an ohm meter to double check that there is power to the brown wires. From what you're saying the dreaded PO has really messed up the wiring. It wouldn't do any of us any good to give you the color-coding of the wires if those wires don't exist any more. But in case they are there, here's the colors for the license plate lites: Brown is ground, power is supposed to be Gray/Green, which comes from the furthest outboard fuse in the bunch of 3 fuses next to the studs in the fuse panel. Best plan, like Bo said is to contact JJ Wheatley of DESTEC and get one of his schematics along with a good digital V O M. In a pinch, I believe there is a factory schematic in the download section of this site, you'll have to do some searching to find it. To get hold of JJ go to the members listings and look for DESTEC. Send him an e-mail, he doesn't get on the site too often, so a PM won't help right now. HTH.

[scrapman]

Thanks again. I will give it a try. Rick

[GTJIM]

All you need for the number plate lights is electricity from a source that goes live when you turn on the lights. If your rear side marker lights go then just run a wire down from them as the number plate lights are not very high drain bulbs - they just have to be "ON" when the headlights or side lights are on.