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Sorry for the dumb question. My '29 has Trippe lights on it that have never been hooked up. I bought a "Unity" brand switch off eBay to work them with and was going to wire them up while my car's down getting the clutch rebuilt. Come to find out, both bulbs were blown, so, got some of those on the way. There's only the one metal-covered wire coming out of the big lights, do they ground through the mounting bracket that hooks them to the front bumper frame? Thanks, and once again, sorry for a dumb question!

Good Morning...No questions are dumb on Packard Info. I don't know the answer to your question...but someone will by noon, I suspect. Ernie in Arizona.

With only one wire coming out chances are good that the ground is provided by the mounts to the bumper or frame. If you can see the back of the socket when you change the bulb look for any wires just in case one might be broken. One wire will be going out to connect to power but if there is a second wire see where it goes.

With lights where a frame and housing is providing a ground some sockets will have a second wire that might be going to a screw or bolt inside on the metal housing. Other sockets will only have one wire and the shell or body of the socket where the bulb inserts provides the ground by touching or being mounted to a metal part of the housing. Some lights have the ground path from the mount, thru the body of the light, thru the reflector which touches the body and then to the socket mounted to the reflector. If you find a wire is broken then a dedicated external ground wire would usually be fairly short coming out of the light housing and would need to be connected by a screw to a solid ground point on a fender or the frame.

Yes, they are grounded via the mounting hardware.

Thanks guys, looking at them there only seems to be that one metal-shrouded wire, so, appreciate suspicions confirmed - now I just gotta' get new bulbs, they're both blown!

Yes grounded to the fender.
Oops you said trip lights
Don't have trip lights on my 31 but the passenger fender light was dim (due to fresh paint on hardware, fender etc.) I did not want to grind the freshly painted parts so my brother and I ran a separate ground wire to it from the headlight bucket.