Currently, the headlights work however they won't go down when I push the switch in, I hear a faint hissing sound of air when I push the switch in. Also, the rear tail light fuse continues to blow once I start driving the car, also the dash gauge lights go off as well. Any ideas of where to start.

 

Welcome to the forum

You will find out that when the C3 was designed, they LOVEDvacuum hoses. They are everywhere, and your headlights are no exception. My guess is that your headlights have a hose leaking (super easy fix - Willcox sells repo hoses on his site that will take care of it), or the canisters up by the headlights have a leak, which is also very common - this is why you are getting a hissing sound. Grab a cigar, blow smoke along the headlight vac hoses (should be along the driverside fender, will be easy to spot if you trace back from headlights), and look for where there is a disturbance in the smoke as you blow along the hose.

Best,
VV

 

The headlights are like VV said, check for a leak up near the actuators. I would think its the relay for the actuators since it sounds like both headlights. If youvdont smoke buy a mighty vac or something similar, your going to use it a lot.

The tail lights bulbs blowing may be a short back there. I'm guessing you step on the brake and the brake lights are whats blowing. I would get a multimeter and take some ground readings from the receptacle center to the housing with the fuse pulled, then have a helper step on the brake and see if it shorts. If it does then that may be a place to start. If its truly just your rear driving lights I think they are tied into your console lights as well. I would get a schematic and see if they are. And then see if they blow when you step on the brakes. Your going to need a helper either way and either a handfull of fuses or buy a resetable breaker style fuse until you figure it out, replacing fuses is going to add up.

As a side note I had a similar problem with all my tail lights,my dash and center console gauge lights going out but my fuse didnt blow and my brakes still worked. I thought it was the light switch because the fuse power for those lights goes through the pight switch before it gets to the fuse panel on my 68. It ended up being a burnt wire on the back of the fuse panel. Point being your going to have to do some investigating to find this.

THe first thing is to figure out what you are doing to blow the fuse, it may just be a wire that rubbed through on your frame and it contacts the frame as you bounce down the road. I had a jeep that the tailights kept blowing and that was the issue for it

 

If the hissing is coming from the H/L switch area, you may have a leak there.
Could be either a disconnected or damaged Vac hose at the switch, or the switch itself is leaking.
And beware the aftermarket replacement H/L switches. They are notoriously poor quality. Asking me how I know?? I'm up to Switch #7, but it's finally working. (mostly electrical failures though)
Good luck!

 

Thanks a lot for all the tips. It ended up being the override pull/*** under the steering wheel. One of the hoses came off.