weird reverse light problem

[cutter57]

My bus is a 1975 Riviera camper. No reverse lights when I bought it. I replaced the tail light assemblies (for other reasons) and paid a little more for the Hella brand. It still was hard to get the bulbs to go into their sockets as they were very, very tight. To get the reverse lights working, I replaced the switch on the tranny nosecone (one prong was missing), and I had to find the wires to it as they had been cut short and capped off. Found them and wired everything together. Even cleaned connections at the splice (to go to both lights) just outside my left tail light. When I go into reverse, my right reverse light comes on immediately, but there is a few seconds delay before the left one comes on. Any ideas why, or what I should do to diagnose and correct this? Any help is appreciated.
_________________
the enemy of good is better.

[Wasted youth]

[Tcash]

Use 1156 bulbs. Clean all the grounds.

[cutter57]

thanks wasted youth and Tcash.

If I recall correctly, the bulbs in the tail light assemblies are grounded by their sockets, and there is a ground wire from the assembly's backing plate to the bus. I remember cleaning my wire with sandpaper before attaching it to the backing plate, but I do not recall tracing it to the other end and cleaning that. My assemblies are only 1-2 months old, so I hope nothing is corroded yet. I will check all grounds Monday when I am home from work again.

I like the idea of reversing the wires to see if the problem switches sides.

I think I already have new 1156 bulbs in the assemblies, but I will double check.

I know the problem seems a little trivial, but I want to be sure it does not become a bigger problem.

Thanks for the help. I will post again once I have done some of the steps advised.
_________________
the enemy of good is better.

[Wasted youth]

[Abscate]

[cutter57]

I think I found my problem. I am at work, but I had a few minutes so I went out to the bus and removed the tail light lens. I have the correct bulb in place (1156), but the socket that houses it has come loose from the metal plate that all three bulbs plug into. I think it is probably a contact issue. Seems like a good place to start. When I get home tomorrow, I will pull the tail light assembly and fix this issue and see if my problem is resolved. I will post my findings here. Thanks to all who have helped.
_________________
the enemy of good is better.

[cutter57]

Problem fixed. It was just a loose bulb socket in my tail light assembly. Thanks to all who helped.
_________________
the enemy of good is better.