Brake lights ground where?

gdizzle said
Ok let me ask a real stupid question: on my 66 dart, I am thinking about trying the LED option on the back lights.

I noticed something interesting today, I pulled the socket out of the light body (brake) and hit the brakes at it lit up. It is my understanding that these light sockets ground via the light body, so if I remove the socket from the body, how can it still light up? Is it using the 2nd contact in the socket as a ground path somehow???? Please enlighten me. Otherwise I think I may have a bare ground somewhere?
I also noticed that one of the lights was acting weak, but when I inserted it back in the light body, I see a little mini spark and the light is full power now.?

The power to the brake bulb will take any and all paths to ground. In this case the power will go from the brake bulb power terminal in the socket, through the filament for the brake bulb to the socket housing, then through the tail lamp filament to the adjacent license plate or tail light filament, through that filament and then to ground on that other socket. Kind of like going around the barn to get to the outhouse but it gets there in the end. The more filaments the power goes through the more voltage drops so the un-grounded bulb will be dimmer than normal.