No l/h tail light

[sue.mc]

Hi all -hope someone can solve this one!
My L/H tail light stopped working -so thought it was a bulb and tried a new one. But it's still not working! This is what I've tried/discovered so far:
Brake lights work both sides
Moved the new bulb over to the Right -that worked -so not the bulb at fault.
Cleaned up contacts on the L/H side and bent them down a bit more to make connection -still no tail light.
Also, number plate light is looking very blackened and is dim on the L/H side. When we swapped left and right bulbs over in number plate light fitting, the blackened one was dim in the R/H side but the one in the L/H side did not work!
I've checked the wires as far as I can see at the L/H tail light fitting and as they go into the boot and it all seems fine.
THere was some water that had collected in a downpour around the loom of the wires -but that has only just happened today an the faults been there for longer.
Any suggestions where I might find the fault?

[bmcecosse]

Must be a faulty connection/broken wire. There's no easy short cut - you will need to trace it through. Try two new bulbs in the number plate lamp!

[simmitc]

You will need to look at the connectors on both sides of the boot - the harness comes up through the floor in front of the spare wheel (behind it when viewed from the rear), runs along the right hand side of the boot floor and then has connectors to feed the right hand light assembly, but also to link to another short loom that runs across the car to feed the left hand unit, so the bad connection could be on either the left or right of the car. The number plate bulb that is black is simply old. Take out all contacts and clean the little hollow bullets and make sure that the wire is clean and held tight by the bullet. Clean all contacts for the bulb. Make sure that all earth connections are good.

[sue.mc]

THanks for those suggestions. Looks like I've got my Sunday afternoon mapped out now! I'll let oyu know what I find -fingers crossed!

[sue.mc]

All sorted! Thanks!
After checking and swapping light connections in the boot etc we convinced ourselves that it was definitely at the bulb end.....we'd already cleaned all connections. So we were down to putting the lights on and seeing if we could make it work by giving it various wiggles! THis worked -so we readjusted the bent over connections -despite both me and my husband trying this already! But it helped knowing that we were going down the right lines...... Now all fine..... probably until the next time I take off in Florrie on one of those huge road humps!
THanks once again to MMOC members!