3rd Brake light help please

[802cb7]

1990 Accord EX Coupe 5-speed

This started as a Honda reps car from California in 1990, so it got everything

Spoiler, cd-player, fogs, all of that.

My issue is somehow over time my trunk has warped or someone put something in there and may have bent the trunk lid enough to where water is coming in through the drivers side trunk seal closet to the corner where the trunk and rear fender meet. I know this because I had a friend sit in the trunk with a light while I sprayed the trunk. So I need to swap out the trunk, and today I decided I wanted to see what the factory third brake light looks light lit up. Its from my understanding that all Cb's that got the factory spoiler had a dealer installed harness that bypasses the third brake light so that only the led's in the spoiler light up. Anyway, I unhooked the spoiler wiring and plugged in the main harness only to find that did nothing. Then i noticed that the wiring for the 3rd brake light actually runs to the left along the drivers side into the power antenna area. I no longer have the power antenna and have that unplugged. The is a relay there that i tested and it does work. I'm just at a loss here on how to get that working. Because I higly doubt the new trunk lid i get will have the spoiler with led brake light, and to be honest I really dont like it anyway. I think coupes look much cleaner with no spoiler or a very small one that runs just around the edge . Anyone else run into this before, and can give me a hand here? Thanks for ready, sorry its so long , and I hope its easy to follow.

[Fleetw00d]

My first suggestion would be to simply bend the trunk lid back into contact. Someone closed one of my Accord's trunk on something which raised the front left corner considerably. With the trunk open, I held on to the lower left rear corner and pushed hard above the hinge mounting point (effectively bending the hinge some) and got the trunk lid to sit flush again.

Sure it is the trunk? When I replaced the quarters on Ruby (90 LX), there was enough rust damage at one of the corners of the trunk opening that water could get past the seal (not between the seal and trunk lid). You might lift the seal off the lip and make sure the metal is good underneath. Water can also show up in the area you describe by leaking past the clips that hold the bottom of the chrome trim around the rear window (hidden under the black rubber lip).

There is an extra section of harness, including the relay, in cars that have the rear spoiler. It is connected such that if the radio is on (antenna up), the antenna will go down if the trunk lid is opened. If you replace the lid with one that does not have a spoiler, remove this extra harness. Where the basic harness plugs in should be relatively easy to figure out.

[illinois_erik]

i had a 93 se with the LED spoiler, it was deleted and a couple years later i changed out the euro taillights for acquired stock ones, which also included the boxes on the lights that came with them and voilą the CHMSL magically worked, it caught me off guard. so i think the secret lies in the boxes on the taillights.