[Joeyv]

I'm hoping someone has the know-how that can help me with a problem I am having with my 41 Mercury's non-functioning tail lights. The car is stock, with a 6 volt system, with the exception of after market turn signals. The turn signals use the fender mounted parking lights in the front, and bumper mounted turn signal lights that were added to the rear.

The headlights work properly. When I tested one of the rear bulb sockets, there was no current at the tail light bulbs, nor at the wires at the back end of the car.

I checked for current at the light switch with the knob pushed in; the light switch's B terminal ( with the "3RY" wire, which connects to the circuit breaker's terminal H) is always hot. No other terminal on the light switch is hot with the knob pushed in. When light switch is pulled out the light switch's H terminal ( the "4YB" wire, which connects to the headlight foot switch) is hot along with terminal B. No other terminal on the light switch gets hot.

On the circuit breaker, terminals B & H are hot. Terminal A on the circuit breaker does not get hot, and I'm thinking that it should be hot, and that is my problem...but I don't know.

I found out my tail lights weren't working when I went to a car run at night, the first night run in a long time. My headlights were dim and flickering, and the tail lights were out. I put in a new headlight switch, and replaced the short pigtails from the light switch to the wire harness connections under the dash. The pigtails that i replaced were pretty worn/falling apart and taped up. The rest of the under dash wiring looks pretty good. After that, the headlights worked fine, but still no tail lights.

I attached (hopefully) pictures of the components I'm working with.

I have rudimentary electric system diagnostics skills so any suggestions where to test next would be greatly appreciated....thanks!