separate brake lights

[abe]

I am having so much trouble with my tail/turn/brake lights that the PO wired up Example: he used household wire nuts for connections, he used an orange extension cord for wire, instead of grounding to the truck body, he ran wires back to the neg terminal of the battery for the ground which is OK I guess but this might cause more problems...

Right now I have tail lights working and turnsignals. I am thinking of putting another set of lights on the rear ( I have a flatbed dump) for the brake lights. An extra set of lights might be good to protect me from people that like to tailgate. Is this a good idea? I think it might be easier to run a new wire from the brake switch to a new set of lights than to figure out why the brakelights aren't working. I have 2 sets of lights on my '54 F-100, but they are this: one for tail and brake, the other for turnsignals.

Looking for advice?
thanks, abe

[HIO Silver]

Those 'repairs' by the PO raises red flags to me. .. i'd be wondering what else is cobbled together. Personally, I'd undo the hack job and try to figure it out.

As far as running extra brake lights, sure... But I'd run a separate circuit with a fuse and relay that uses the brake light as the signal to trigger the relay.

[basketcase0302]

Abe,

Your issue with your turn signals is probably one and the same of the brake light not working properly. Here's the wiring diagram for your trucks lighting to start from. It takes some crawling under the dash for a lot of the troubleshooting with the turn signals. One quick / cheap thing to start with would be to replace the turn signal flasher. As they get old the bi-metal strip inside, (similar to a set of points) wears and can fail intermittently: