Spent the day flipping the rear hangers in my 2001 XL, more on that some other time. When taking the bed off i failed to disconnect the taillight relay from the frame and ended up tearing the connector apart. After putting everything back together i now only have running and reverse lights, no brake and turn signals. i checked the output into the bulbs and it is still getting power but the brake and turn signals aren't turning on. best i can figure it is an issue with a ground somewhere.
are there some grounds to the bumper or frame which i might have overlooked?
any advice is appreciated.

 

Might sound kinda dumb but could your bulbs be burned out? Or maybe a fuse is partially blown and it's not getting enough power to light the filament.

 

turns out after disconnecting and reconnecting the lights one was able to get working but other one seems to be burnt out. they were working before and the filaments are intact so i must have damaged the light somehow. everything should work fine once i get a new bulb tomorrow, fingers crossed.

 

Yeah filament bulbs are picky about how they are jostled around. Glad to hear you got it fixed almost. Hopefully the new bulb works out for ya

Also you might want to replace both.

 

If not the bulbs, check your fuses. I had a similar problem and just had a fuse that would pop every now and then. If I remember correctly, it was one under the hood.

 

turns out one of the bulbs has a problem, but not with the filament, it sparked when put into the live socket. the other bulb which wasn't working is working now after being fiddled with and reconnected. got some new bulbs and am installing them today. now its on to the next project!