Stop / Tail Lights

As I get closer to the painting of my 30C I am doing some of the fiddly bits I want to do to the tractor while I wait for the weather to be in my favour. One thing I am doing is fitting rear lights and these ones although not David Brown lights are what I wanted, a stop/tail light which is a low profile. So in my search of lights I found some MF lights that filled my requirements so I bought them. they came from Sparex and I have had them stored for well over a year now and today I mounted both guards on a bench and fitted them up. It was not until I took them apart I realised that they are made with-out and earth at all. SO I had to solder an earth wire to the mounting bracket to get them to work.
There is nothing so annoying as having to repair a brand new part. Sparex Crap!

Cobba
Me thinx U lost me there
Some lights mounted on Fibre Glass or plastic do need an earth wite to run to chassis to complete the circuit
but normally 2 fillament globe has a dull wire for tail light nad a bright wire for stop light
then to complete the circuit the body of the globe mounted in a metal holder th@ is mounted to the body of the light being
sum sort of metal and Bolted/riveted to the chassis etc

If n U get my drift

cya

Cobba, as I said on another forum, they are designed to operate only as single filament tail lights and sold as such, therefor only needing 2 wires. Don't shoot the supplier before you get your facts right.

Had a similar thing fitting combo clearance, stop, backup and indicator lamps. Simply soldered extra earth lead from bases of lamp holders, ganged them together and then bolted the earth to the chassis. No real biggie, never hurts to run extra earth wires anyway.

wee-allis wrote: Cobba, as I said on another forum, they are designed to operate only as single filament tail lights and sold as such, therefor only needing 2 wires. Don't shoot the supplier before you get your facts right.

In this case, the globe will be single filament, two contacts and straight pins.
Stop/Tail are double filament, two contacts (earth through the body) and offset pins.

Cobba are these the primary stop/tail lights? If they are don't they have to have a reflector as well to be roadworthy? Just askin

Yeah Swishy this is my issue, there is no way that this light can work as a stop tail without and earth and that rivet you can see from the underside of the grommet would not earth out on paintwork so a dedicated wire is needed.
Yeah Dave soldering a dedicated wire is the only answer on this one.
Steve I'm not going to 'shoot the seller' but I have sent him an email explaining what it is I have found and the way I resolved it. Only did this so he might want to follow it up with Sparex to see if they in future will fit an earth wire so nobody else has the same issue. The seller is grateful for the feed back.
Southbound, this is where this all goes to crap. This assembly when bought was bought as a stop/tail for my Cropmaster and did come with a double filament globe but NOT an offset pin they are straight. Because Australia has given up on insisting that any sort of "standards" should apply if you want to sell products to us they now have double filament globes in offset and straight pin. This is what has been fitted into this fitting. If it was only meant to be a tail light there would not be 2 wires that must make contact with a double filament globe. A tail light only would only have a single wire in the middle of the globe holder.
fxs80 - yes these are primarily a stop/tail light but as you have pointed out no reflector built in. If this was to have full NSW rego reflectors would have to fitted next to the lights and be red and face rearwards. As this has Club rego those rules do not apply as the Club rego restrictions on this tractor is it is not to be driven during the night daylight driving only and that is what we will ever do.

Cobba, don't think that because it has two wires in the holder it is not meant just as a tail light. There are any amount of single filament double pole lights and globes about. So many vehicles required the current to flow through the globe and hard wired back to either the chassis or in fact, the battery of the said vehicle. A lot of Pommie trucks/busses had what was known as "Earth return" systems and even had a fuse on each returning earth. A hell of a lot of fun when chasing problems.
Any way, you managed to sort it. Steve.

Been playing around with the pressure pack paint and got the starter motor, generator, head and the stop/tail lights painted ready to go back on later. I have now boxed them up for safe keeping. In case I forget they are just inside the shed roller door in boxes and labelled. :huh: