Bulb Socket Upgrade with Ground Wire

I have a 1965 Special with the two small tail lights and having owned three 1971 skylarks I thought this one was going to be very similar. Im slowly learning how much more "advanced" the newer cars were .

The 1965 has brittle and old wiring and sockets and the tail lights intermittently shut off when the socket dislodges from the housing, breaking the ground connection. Having only 1 bulb per tail light (I don't have the fancy full width tails) I really don't want to be driving down the road with no lights on. All it takes is a bump for them to shut off. I'm looking to replace the old sockets but some of the parts are not available. Rock auto lists a version from time to time, but if I'm redoing them I'd rather upgrade to 1970s technology at least.

My question is has anyone upgraded the bulb socket to a newer style 1157 socket? If so, what other mods are required? Any modifications to the housing?

I've included a couple of pics to show what I'm on about. White is the 1965 version which grounds through the housing (2 wires). The black is the newer 1971 style (3 wires) with a dedicated ground wire.

The 1971 style will stay lit irrespective of if it's secured in the housing or not. The 1965 must be installed in the housing to complete the ground to illuminate.

 

I did on my 64 Skylark, it's the same as your Special.

This is the style I used.

https://www.wiringdepot.com/store/p...-Butt-Terminated-Wires-1-Pc.aspx?feed=Froogle

 

It might not be worth the hassle but if you didn’t want to chop the harness, couldn’t you just solder a ground wire to the existing connector and create a “ground strap”. I appreciate your issue as I had some courtesy lamps in the footwells that used to flicker because they were chassis ground and the socket clips were all mangled. I did something similar to fix. Mine was annoying, yours is a safety issue. Also go get some red LED bulbs for the taillights, they are so much brighter and don’t heat up the sockets.

 

Unfortunately no, we're well past that point. The existing sockets have become very brittle along with the wiring. After I couldn't source a socket I had to cut and splice the same wire into the broken socket and wedge it into the housing the best I could. The wiring posted by trunk monkey is the best solution.

LED are in the plans as well.