quick question, Im using the painless wiring harness to re-wire my truck and im doing the turn signals. the painless kit has a wire for the side marker lamp and the turn signal, and the factory light bulb has two different wires of different colors coming out of it. Ones brown and ones black. Is one color the turn signal and the other for the side marker lamp? or does it matter?
Thanks, travis

Which factory bulb has the brown/black wires--the side marker or the front turn sig? Usually, if the painless color codes are the same, brown will be for the running lamps and black will be for the ground. However if it is the front assy, then it will be self grounding, which means the brown will be running and the black will be turn sig. Hook the black to the either the blue or light blue. If it is the side marker then you can go either 2 ways. You can have just a running lamp, brown to running circuit or brown to brown and black to ground, OR you can have the sidemarkers flash by hooking the black to the coresponding blue wires (right or left). Does that make sense?

thanks for the help, im doing it with turn signals. Hopefully it will be running by tommorow.
-Travis

How about some pictures of it all?

didnt finish her in time, Im back up at school now and should be headin back home soon to do some finishing touches. ill post some pics as soon as she's back on the road.

Travis,
Did you ever finish this up?
I am at the same stage of rewiring and have the same question (I have an e-mail in to Painless tech support).
Given a choice I'd like to have the side marker lights flash with the signal lights and I suspect that the Painless kit is a constant on (brown to the side marker and side marker to ground)

quick question, Im using the painless wiring harness to re-wire my truck and im doing the turn signals. the painless kit has a wire for the side marker lamp and the turn signal, and the factory light bulb has two different wires of different colors coming out of it. Ones brown and ones black. Is one color the turn signal and the other for the side marker lamp? or does it matter?
Thanks, travis

1) The side marker light is a different color wire altogether (I believe brown with white stripe...I don't have my wiring diagram handy).

2) The park/turn signal wires are three differnent colors but labeled in the Painless kit.

3) All grounds for these lights are not provided in the harness. The process of bolting the light housings to the truck provides ground.

4) I do believe the wire colors for the park/turn signal lights are different from the Painless wire colors, and both lights are identical in wiring. It is very easy to figure out which wire in the light is turn and which is park--hook a battery up to each terminal independently (touch ground wire to housing) and which ever wire causes the light to be brighter is the turn signal and the less bright is park.

IMHO, wiring these lights is the easiest part of the Painless kit. Simple plug and play... Unless you don't like splices and decide to redo all the connections!!

Travis,
Did you ever finish this up?
I am at the same stage of rewiring and have the same question (I have an e-mail in to Painless tech support).
Given a choice I'd like to have the side marker lights flash with the signal lights and I suspect that the Painless kit is a constant on (brown to the side marker and side marker to ground)

You can hook up the side markers however you want if you wish to make mods to the harness. If you use the Painless side marker wire, I suspect that it would be on with the park lights. (I don't have to worry since I have a 67!) You could splice into the turn signals to run the side markers if you wanted to, but I would suggest checking out with your state to see if flashing side markers are legal. You could modify your side markers to have dual contact bulbs and keep the Painless side marker wire and splice your turn signals at the same time (probably more legal).

There were actually 2 things that got me questioning this though. The first was the way the stock harness was wired and the second was these instructions from the Painless web site in reference to thier universal replacement harnesses and side marker lights:

=======paste from Painlessperformance.com============
Connect a two wire marker light sockets as follows:

Right front marker light
Connect one wire to the tail light circuit, not the park light circuit. The park lights turn off when you turn the headlights on with most headlight switches.
Connect the other wire to the right front turn signal wire

Left front marker light
Connect one wire to the tail light circuit. This can connect to the same place as the brown from the right marker light.
Connect the other wire to the left front turn signal wire

Right rear marker light
Connect one wire to the tail light wire
Connect the other wire to the nearest chassis ground

Left rear marker light
Connect one wire to tail light wire
Connect the other wire to the nearest chassis ground

The system works as follows:

The rear is self explanatory. It only works as a marker light.

The front is a marker and turn signal.

When you have the park lights on, the ground path will come through the turn signal circuit.

When you turn the turn signal on the ground path comes from the park light circuit. When you have the park lights on and turn on the turn signal the path to ground is made when the front turn signal light is not on during the blinking, this will give the effect that the markers will be blinking opposite of the front turn signals.

When the park lights are off, the markers and turn signals will blink at the same rate and not opposite.
===========end Paste ==========

This is how I would like mine to function. I'll probably leave the signal and marker lights until the end and experiment with a couple of configurations to see what works best. If I can get motivated enough to tackle the mess of wires I currently have inside the cab I may get to it this weekend.

There were actually 2 things that got me questioning this though. The first was the way the stock harness was wired and the second was these instructions from the Painless web site in reference to thier universal replacement harnesses and side marker lights:

<<SNIP>>

This is how I would like mine to function. I'll probably leave the signal and marker lights until the end and experiment with a couple of configurations to see what works best. If I can get motivated enough to tackle the mess of wires I currently have inside the cab I may get to it this weekend.

Just so I am on the same page, are you using the Painless kit for the 67-72 Chevy/GMC trucks or one of their generic 12/18/whatever universal harnesses? The reason I ask is that the truck kit has a specific wire for the front marker lights (and since I don't have marker lights I removed it and couldn't tell you whether it turns on with the park lights or headlights).

Also, not being familiar with the marker lights in general, are they a single or dual contact bulb? If they are a single contact bulb, you are better off not even trying to wire them for marker and flashers, since when the headlights are on, they would be on constantly whether the turn signal is blinking or not (path of least resistance, yada yada yada...) It wouldn't be too difficult to wire them for dual contact sockets, but it is a modification some would shy away from because of the chance that something wouldn't work correctly.

My other suggestion, would be to make a miniature model using 16 guage wire, a battery, your light housings (and possibly your headlight switch) and experiment to see if the wiring you have could possibly do what you want. You can simulate the blinker circuit by manually "blinking" the wire you designate for turn signals by touching it to the battery a couple times. Just make sure the light housings are grounded to the negative terminal of the battery and you should be golden.

I am using the specific kit for the 67-72's. The marker light is a single filament.
I'll probably just take the simple way out and wire it as Painless intended. If I have a little patience I may try the alternatives prior to soldering everything permanently (but I want to get the truck back on the road a few times before winter sets in).
Anyway - no big concerns - I'll let everyone know how it all turns out.
Thanks for the advice.