How to remove 3rd brake light.

[dahodges]

How do you remove the 3rd brake light from the hatch?

How do you get to the two bolts that hold the assy. to the hatch.

Does anyone know how the wires run thru the hatch to the body.

My third brake light does not work. The bulb is good. The other brake lights work.

What else should I check?

Thanks David

[SimonTuffGuy]

I removed mine from all of my Festivas when I got them...

The 2 bolts are covered up by a black plastic cover that slides on... If you use a screwdriver or just pull (if the hatch is UP, you'll pull down on the cover) and it'll just pull off... 2 10-mm bolts hold it on. As for how it's connected, there's just a set of wires that run down through the hatch and connect. If you've got the rear cover off the hatch (to see the insides/wires, etc) you'll see where it connects. Do your license plate lights work? If so, that means you've got power running through the harness that runs into the hatch (somewhere)... You may just need to check to see that you're brake light is connected/gronded.

My solution? Just yank it off and forget about it.

[dahodges]

Turns out the wires were (cut/twisted?) in two were the wires go from the hatch into the body. Also the wire harness is different if you have the rear wiper/defroster or not.

[ajb999]

the wiring is there for the rear wiper and defrost even if your car didn't come w/ them. i know they were on mine and several people have said they were on theirs.

[SimonTuffGuy]

ajb - The wiring may be in the HATCH for it, but I don't believe the wires run into the hatch (that would be the wires that run along the window in the hatch, out the top, and then down the c-pillar of the Festiva and plug in behind the drivers side tail light...

When I swapped hatches from Capster to my uncles spare white Festiva... Casper had rear wiper/defrost... My uncles did not. There was an additional wiring harness that ran from Casper hatch that was NOT on my uncles hatch (I believe there were 3 wires there, 1 plug).

As I said... the wires MIGHT be in the hatch (in the center, where the rest of the wires are all at), but I doubt that you'll have the rest of the wires that you need to run the stuff.

Could be wrong... But I don't think I am.

[dahodges]

I removed the wiring harness that goes up the drivers side of the hatch into the body and down the the drivers side C pillar to the tail light. I removed them from both cars. One had a build date of 06/90 the other had a build date of 09/90. They were not interchangable. Not enought wires or connectors for the wiper/defroster.

David