Rebuild front directional housing on 1964 Skylark

jgrffin3rd

Active Member
Need some advice (as usual lol).

I have a 1964 skylark. Want to swap the old incandescent bulbs to bright white LEDs. Plan to leave the front bulbs alone!
Purchased the LEDs and a LED compatible flasher and installed them this evening.
When I turn on the headlights, both bulbs light up.. The left hand directional works perfectly.
The right directional doesn't work at all and neither brake light works.
When I put the old bulb back in the socket everything works again..

Any ideas how to troubleshoot?
 
I think I may have found the problem.. It turns out that the right front may be the problem.. Even with the old bulbs, it doesn't light up. The bulb sockets in the housings are old and crusty.. Sadly, no one makes replacement housings. Has anyone (successfully) rebuilt them? I have no idea what parts to get or how to go about it..
 
So, you have found a grounding issue with deteriorated housings making poor contact to the side of the bulbs. Pull them apart and use a glass beader gently to remove the poor surface in the housing. You could even be aggressive with something like walnut shell. When reinstalling coat the contact area with dialectric grease.

pigtails on ebay
 
I thinks the springs are worn out too. I am trying to get a 'junk' set of housings I can experiment with before mucking with my factory originals. :)
 
Go to Crack Auto and buy a new replacement socket and gut it. The contacts and springs are a perfect match to re-install into the '64 plugs. I just did the same job! LEDs are super critical of poor grounds/contacts and will have you scratching your ba... baseballs trying to figure this out. Hopefully I can find the right pics outa the 12,000 I have on this job! Good luck!! Bill

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Thanks Bill.. I am actually only replacing the rear with LEDs, but the fronts have been acting up causing the whole system to flake out sometimes.. I will def. rebuild the fronts if I can't figure it out. I appreciate the info on the parts. Is there any 'trick' to getting the old parts out of the housing and installing the new ones? I know just enough about these things to be dangerous. Hoping to get a junk housing I can learn on before messing with mine.
 
The only thing that concerns me is polarity is critical for LEDs to function ; if not properly, work at all! The fronts (and rears) are a two wire socket and grounded through the fixture. That must be an extremely good ground for the LEDs to work. That includes the fronts. An auxiliary pigtail wire for a ground may not be a bad idea. Electricity and rust is just the opposite of water, only worse.

The worst part is cutting and splicing the new socket contacts. Do a nice solder job and heat shrink tubing to seal it and you should be good to go. The NAPA number is good and the parts (internal) are a perfect fit. Easy peezy, chinamaneezy! Toss the new stel barrel in the trash and dont look back! Its about 2.95 per socket. Use a dolyp of dielectric grease on the works to keep the weather at bay. Bill

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