hey guys,. I have a 03 ram 1500 crew cab, and I've run into some kinda wiring problem, check this out:
a few months ago I'm on the freeway and my 'lampout' light goes on and rings not once, but a dozen times. the 'lamp out' light stays on for a bit then goes off. I check the taillights and headlights and everything is working, this started happening for a few weeks where the ringing would go off and the 'lampout' sign would light up then turn off. then it stayed on and I found I had my drivers brake light was not working. changed the bulb, and it was ok for about 3 months. then recently same thing started happening, no drivers side brake light,,, so I checked the bulb and it didn't look busted or burnt, but I replaced it anyway. But this time after I changed the bulb it still did not work. 'lamp out' light is on, it doesn't ring constantly like it did last time, just when I first start up the truck. So I checked all the fuses and all seemed fine, I even replaced the circuit panel for the drivers side and still NO BRAKE LIGHT! turn signal works fine, running lights work fine, but no brake light.
So what am I missing here??

 

what about other bulbs? Not sure on the ram but my moms intrepid the brake lights are in series with other ones. So when one went out they all stopped on that side

 

i has something similar on my wife's 00 durango, what i found out was i had a loose wire/connector. on the pigtail that plugged into the light everytime i noticed one of the wires inside the connector was being pushed out and not making contact so i was not getting the turn signals to work. try looking at that to see if you have a similar problem. i ended up pushing the wire back into the connector and useing both elec tape and some of that liquid tape i bought at an autoparts store to keep it from coming back out or loose while driving. good luck o and by the way some of the bulbs are a dual filiment so if the all lights work but the turn signal then that filiment might be out, kind of what reefguy89 was saying.

 

I'll check out that loose wiring to see if that maybe it.
reefguy: I checked to see if anything else wasn't working, and its all ok, just the one brake light, it was like that last time as well, a simple bulb change fixed it, then it happens again and its not the bulb :-/

 

I had that problem. Water go into the board and shorted the whole board out. Everything worked but the lamp out would not go away. I just bought a whole new tail light that included the board. This parts store online is the best. $44 bucks with free shipping for the light AND the board. Best price anywhere, even better then ebay.

http://www.am-autoparts.com/AM/Tail-...2/AM-38276476/

Hope this helps,
Hontz

 

**** didn't see the end where you said you even bought a new board... Hmmm i'd try another board again. Maybe you have some moisture getting in somewhere or the board was faulty. Maybe a ground?

 

CreepJohnny...nice name.

As for your problem this is the fix. You need to replace the whole tail light circuit board. I have had to replace both sides. Here is a link to what it looks like.

http://autoparts.pricegrabber.com/ta...m70785763.html

 

I had this very same problem a couple months ago. Before you buy a circuit board again, like i did. The problem I had was that the power wire for my light (under the truck traveling from one side to the other under the hitch mount) A piece of that wire about 8 or 9 inches long was corroded inside of the protective coating. I just took a test light, hooked it to the frame, and kept prodding the wire every couple inches until I found where the bad piece of wire was. Then cut it out and replaced it.

 

I too have a 2003 Quad Cab, and I had very similar issues. My lamp out light would randomly come on and chirp at me, and it was driving me crazy. I did some research and it seemed like the most common cause was the grey board the bulbs clip into gets corroded after time on some trucks. So I opened up my taillights to check out everything inside. Both sides were clean, not even a speck of dirt inside them. Lucky for me, as I was putting the bulbs back in I noticed one of them looked funny. On the black base, the part that actually clips into the board, one of the contacts was messed up. You have the four little contacts 2 on each side of the bulb. Well, one of mine looked like it was melted or pushed into the plastic sort of. I figured buying a new bulb was a cheaper option than a new board, replaced said bulb and problem solved. So I would say take every bulb out and look over the contacts carefully. If one or more look off, replace it. Based on my looking around the lamp out light work son resistance, so I figured having the one messed up contact was just enough to throw it off once in awhile, causing the lamp to come on.

 

I had the same problem on mine... Check where the bulb plugs into the socket... Mine melted a little bit of plastic and it would interfer with the connection.