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I installed a new wiring harness and new headlight switch on my 68 convert three years ago. It recently occurred to me that all of the GM and Ford cars I grew up with in the 1950s and 1960s had a headlight switch that would turn on the interior lights if you twisted it all the way counter-clockwise. I tried this on my Vette and I can feel there is a "click" in the switch when turned all the way counter-clockwise, but the interior lights do not come on. Turning the switch clockwise makes the instrument lights brighter and of course pulling the switch out to the first position turns on the parking lights and the second position turns on the full headlights. Is there supposed to be a function on the switch to turn on the interior lights? I hardly ever drive the car at night, but it would be nice if this function was there.......just in case.
Peterbuilt- AHAH! Probably not. The PO had an "ignition switch" on the car that looked like it was from a lawn mower. It activated the starter, but was completely wrong. He had jury rigged the wiring harness to make connections to it. When I installed the new, correct wiring harness and new correct ignition switch I used the hole in the dash, but I do not believe there was any grounding strap there. Hope I can get my hands up there to make the correction without taking the dash off again. Thanks. RA
2020 Corvette of the Year Finalist (performance mods)
2019 C3 of Year Winner (performance mods)
2016 C3 of Year Finalist
Peterbuilt beat me to it. I had to run a wire to a good ground until I got my dash issue sorted out. The grounds seem to be daisy chained together through the back of the dash. If you loosen the switch bezel and get a loop of wire around behind it, then tighten it back up, you can run it as a temporary ground to the birdcage until you can get the dash apart to investigate further. If the switch goes bad ( or more likely the vacuum switch on the back of it ) then the dash will have to come off to replace it anyway.
After I posted my reply to Peterbuilt, I realized I was ranting about the cheap ignition switch the PO used. That has nothing to do with the headlight switch, but I guess I am still really mad at the PO for doing such a bad job on the wiring!
2020 Corvette of the Year Finalist (performance mods)
2019 C3 of Year Winner (performance mods)
2016 C3 of Year Finalist
Originally Posted by ronarndt
After I posted my reply to Peterbuilt, I realized I was ranting about the cheap ignition switch the PO used. That has nothing to do with the headlight switch, but I guess I am still really mad at the PO for doing such a bad job on the wiring!
I'm sure if he did a crappy job on that, he did more crappy work else where. My bubba did so many things I lost track.
Success! With a moderate amount of cussing I was able to snake a ground wire thru the dashboard/door trim to get a ground on the birdcage and was able to loosen the headlight switch threaded bezel enough to wrap the other end of the wire around the metal of the switch. Not stock, but it is hidden and it works. Thanks for the help.
headlight switch on 1968
