slight Neon Beam mystery

[Scallywag]

So this weekend I was able to come up on 3 tail+ballast combos via ebay from some cool people here in Chicago, and surprisingly, they all work!!

Sorta...

1 out of the 3 has a slight little prob where it'll light if you connect it without putting it on the car, but once you actually lay it down in it's trunk space, it turns off once it's firmly in place. It'll stay lit if I have it anywhere but on the trunk, but even so, when I'd ask a friend to hit the break, it usually shuts off.... oh well, that's a little prob

So they all work, but what boggles the mind is that the lights wont turn on if I have em connected and turn the car on. I have to disconnect/reconnect the harness while the car is running before they turn on to get my beams up and running

what would cause this? maybe the harness on my trunk lid or something....?

any ideas and/or suggestions would be great

 

[DieselDan]

I think the ballast may be bad, it is just barely getting enough voltage to fire up the ballast. The voltage drop when the other lights turn on is lowering the power to the ballast just enough for it to not fire up. I say this because I remember some members have had the same problem as you are describing and found what I just said.

Maybe check your voltage at the harness to the ballast vs whatever you were bench testing it to. If you were using it on the car just didn't screw it down, then maybe a broken wire and frome the mounted position to lying in the trunk, the wire is going open/closed. I would put a DVOM in the plug, then move the harness around.

Good luck!

 

[Scorpio1118_2000]

If you don't have enough power, why not upgrade the other lights to l.e.d.s? That should free up some power, or it just a bad ballast?

 

[Scallywag]

Well, all 3 neons work with their ballast, but I think it's just a bad harness or some type of short from the wiring on the trunk lid, because although the lights now work and stay lit when I hit the brake, they will begin to flicker or go completely off if you begin to mess with the harness in the slightest way(voltage meter showed drop in power when toying with the trunk female harness).

There is still that issue where in order to have the lights turn on, i have to turn the car on and disco/reco the harness, but I don't want to do that too much cause of my suspicion about the harness

I think it should be fairly simple to sort this out. Maybe replace/retin the connectors or something...

 

[JDS353]

check your ground on the trunk that you have it clean. also look for corrision in the connectors