Hey Everyone,

There is a lot on the internet about tail light hard wiring. Most forums or posts I see show people using just one positive and one negative coming off of each bulb socket. I wanted to skip soldering because I am not the best at it and just use spade connectors. Well they don't make spade connectors big enough to fit these tabs and its a pain to try and shave the tabs down. So now I am back to soldering. Well what I don't understand is that my sockets have three tabs instead of two. Can I just solder onto either tab or does it matter? It has two tabs that connect to the bulb and one tab coming off the inside. I am assuming I have two positive connections and one ground per socket maybe. I need to get this done ASAP and really could use some help. Also, what type of solder would be best. I read that some solder wont stick onto the tabs.

Thanks

 

Ok everyone, well I just tried soldering onto the back of one of the tabs after sanding it down and cleaning it and the solder wouldn't stick. I was told the solder wouldn't stick to aftermarket sockets but mine are all Volvo. I used Bernz O Matic silver bearing lead free solid wire solder I found laying around my house. It has a diameter of 2.4mm. I know little to nothing about soldering, so I am unsure if its the solder or what that's the issue.

Thanks.

 

Ok I have figured it out. The reason i have three tabs on my 21/5W tail light bulb is because the 5 watt on the bottom connects to it. I might also have found some spade connectors that fit. Well, I am glad I got that figured out. But now my issue is that my wires on my tail lights do not follow the color scheme on the diagram online. The colors on my tail light consist as directed. The numbers correspond with the connector on the car. The numbers I leave blank means nothing is connected there.

Drivers Side

1 Red/Black
2 Red/Black
3
4 Green/Blue
5 Yellow/Gray
6 Red
7 Light Purple
8

Passengers Side

1 Purple/White
2
3 Brown/White
4 Yellow
5 Blue
6
7 Red/Black
8

This is the diagram I found that I am working with. My wiring colors don't even match completely and the passenger and drivers side are completely different. I feel someone has definitely been in there messing with the wiring.

http://brickwalla.files.wordpress.co...0_hardwire.gif

 

you should have seen my wagon's wiring.....looked like twisted spaghetti with Twizzlers all balled up and blobs of a clear epoxy.....

 

I definitely figure that someone has been in there messing around. What I don't get is that every connector area, I.E. (1, 2, 3, and so on) I feel should have specific tasks on both the drivers and passenger side. Why are there such differences but they both operate the same? Are the drivers and passengers side suppose to be set up differently? My best guess is that something may have went wrong with certain connectors and maybe someone went in there and moved stuff around to get it working properly. So does this mean I am going to have to go in there and do process of elimination and figure out which wire goes to what connection? I may also add that the previous owners did not take very good care of the car and that I have found a lot of half a** stuff going on. Its kind of upsetting because it now makes my job even harder when if they would have taken the little bit of extra time, the job could have gotten done right.

 

this write up might help....follow the link below

RWD - Tail Light wiring diagram

 

Hey thanks a lot man, that really helped. My final question is what do I do about these "jumpers" that are running from the drivers side and passenger side? For instance, the black wire coming from drivers side connector port #2 is apparently connected to the passenger side connector port #7. I see in the write up they are calling it a "jumper". How would I wire those? Thanks.

 

man I don't really now....I wish I had my wagon so I could look at it as reference

 

I'm back to have tail light issues again. I want to hard wire and be done with it. Is there female wire connectors that will slip on the ends to the bulbs? I'm having trouble getting the solder to stick to the bulb sockets.

 

you mean conventional bulb sockets that have solder tabs or pigtails? you could hack up some cheap trailer lights and use the sockets, but I'm not sure how you'd get teh bulbs to mount in the right place, yet stilll be replacable

 

Take a look at this site. It looks like he soldered directly to the tabs on the bulb sockets. This bypasses the circuit board entirely.

Volvo Sedans, years ’83-‘90

 

big alarm, you said 'solid silver lead-free solder' ?? so you didn't use any flux? no wonder nothing would stick.

you HAVE to use 'activated rosin' flux for electrical soldering, and traditional 60-40 lead-tin solder is about 100X better than any lead-free crap.