Fixed my license plate light

"Urambo Tauro" (urambotauro)
02/11/2019 at 12:00 • Filed to: wrenching, murlequin

Good thing I caught it before a cop did!

Normally, a ’95 Sierra would have two license plate lamps, but I had removed the lamp on one side and reamed out the mounting hole to make room for a trailer plug. A recent investigation into my state’s requirements for !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! made me look closer at vehicle lighting and inspired me to check and see if running one lamp was really sufficient to light the plate after all. If not, perhaps I could try a LED bulb and see if that’s bright enough...

But before I could see if the plate was still readable at night from 50 ft away, I needed to to address the fact that the light wasn’t working at all!

I pulled the bulb out, which had developed a bit of a dark spot on the glass, but still appeared to have an intact filament. So I tested the plug, and it had power. But what it didn’t have was a good ground. A quick peek underneath revealed a broken wire, no longer connected to its... wire nut. (Seriously? Thanks, previous owner; thanks a lot.)

I peeled back the wire loom to find some crappy splices too, and decided to disconnect the entire (short, about 2 feet long) harness and rewire it myself from the connector to the one remaining lamp. Shouldn’t take long.

I grabbed my box of wiring tools/supplies and started splicing and heat-shrinking new wires from the bulb socket to the connector. Alas, once I got to the connector, one of the wires pulled out with little effort.

So I ran to the parts store in search of new pins to install in the connector, but they didn’t have the right ones. I looked online, and found whole new connectors... ranging from about $30-$50, shipped.

Well, screw that. I’d rather splice in some cheapo non-OE-style connector. Heck, I’d even be tempted to skip the connector altogether and splice it directly into the main harness.

But you know what, that’s overthinking it. It is a GMT400 after all... so I ran to the local salvage yard, and pulled the license plate harness off of another truck. Boom. Easy as that. Wham bam thank ya ma’am, $10 for a used but intact plug-n-play OE harness, complete with bulbs.

I probably could have talked it down to $5, but I don’t care. Thankfully the ground was frozen, so that I could slide under my truck and pop it in in just a matter of seconds, right there in the parking lot of the yard.

DISCUSSION (7)

ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability > Urambo Tauro
02/11/2019 at 12:36

This reminds me that one of my plate lights is out too. Will need to investimgate once I go home. I doubt I’ll find a Mini in a yard near me if the harness is f’ed up.

chuck07 > Urambo Tauro
02/11/2019 at 12:52

You have to love work done by others.

I got pulled over at 2am on my way to work for a tag light being out. Easy, just replace bulb. Replaced the bulb with an LED bulb, turned the lights on... and nothing. Ok, let’s replace the fuse. Wait, none are labeled tag light and every other light is working so I’m not going to trace down what fuse is the tag light.

So now I go to verify all connections, and see a wire tucked up above the bumper connectors. My tag light hadn’t been connected for 3 years, ever since I was rear ended and got my bumper replaced.

TheD0k_2many toys 2little time > Urambo Tauro
02/11/2019 at 20:54

Lol. Havent had ones on my truck since ive owned it. so like 4 years. Been pulled over for it by MI state police and still never fixed. Local cops dont care tho

CalzoneGolem > Urambo Tauro
02/18/2019 at 12:23

I got my first ever field sobriety test due to a burned out tag light and admitting to having a a couple beers with dinner. This was slightly a ft er midnight so there was no way I was impaired from two beers like 6 hours ago.

VincentMalamute-Kim > CalzoneGolem
02/19/2019 at 20:57

admitting to having a a couple beers with dinner.

:0 yike! You have to be non-brown to have gotten away with admitting that! Right?

CalzoneGolem > VincentMalamute-Kim
02/20/2019 at 07:26

Did you just assume my privilege ?

VincentMalamute-Kim > CalzoneGolem
02/20/2019 at 10:46

I did! :)

(I figured I was right since you weren’t shot!)

Related tangent - Oppo constit uents seem fairly white in the few photos I’ve come across?