Topic: '77 CB 400F Brakelight

[jonboycox]

How much brighter should the tail light be when the brakes are applied? When looking at he tail light I can see a slight increase in intensity, but not very much. The bulb has two filaments, one for the running light fed from the Brown wire and one from the brake light switches running from the Brown Yellow wire. It is too bright with the plastic cover off to see if the filaments are lighting individually, and with the cover on I can't tell If I am just disturbing/increasing the power to the running light filament. All seems to be hooked up correctly according to the wiring diagram on the owners manual. If anybody has wrestled with this one let me know how you resolved it.

[sopo400f]

Maybe you have some voltage drop/resistance due to some corrosion somewhere in the line...??

[MoMo]

Difference between brake and tail should be noticeable.  The brake light is green/yellow...Larry

[Bodi]

Sounds like the bulb is in wrong. With enough effort you can put it in the wrong way, the two pins on the lamp are at different heights but force overcomes this design. Alternatively the wires have gotten switched: anyway it seems your tail light is using the stop lamp filament and vice-versa. The difference from tail to stop should be dramatic, with the filaments reversed there's a difference but it's slight.

[jonboycox]

It seems there is a large filament and a small filament. Which one should be the brake light?

[jonboycox]

Problem solved: when I was cleaning the tail light assembly I had the spring loaded base plate out of the assembly... It must have gone in backwards.... so the wires are right and the bulb is in right but that means that the wrong filament is lighting up..Thanks Bodi for the good advice.