Also look at the fuse box and wiggle the harness going into it. In the late '70s GM started using aluminum wires in some cars. When you have two different kinds of metal and an acid, such as road salt, you get "galvanic action". In other words, you have a battery and corrosion. There's brass strips and rivets in the fuse box that the aluminum wires were riveted to, and the box sat right above the driver's feet, right where road salt and water could migrate to it. I found that on a Firebird once that had intermittent tail lights. The only aluminum wires I saw were for the rear harness. To fix it, I soldered some new copper wires to the brass strips in the fuse box and ran those to the back of the car. The insulation on those wires is translucent and you can see the wire inside. Don't poke the insulation to take a voltage reading, (never an acceptable method on any wire), because moisture will get in and corrode the wire apart at that spot in a few months.
Saturday, August 20th, 2011 AT 3:37 AM