Interior Lights stay on
Team Owner
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 54,124
Likes: 30
From: Cincinnati, Oh USA
Interior lights turn on when the door jamb switch is closed circuit (door open). If the door jamb switch is shorted to ground, your lights will stay on all the time. Also, the door jamb switch goes to the courtesy light timer and a defective timer can also keep the lights on all the time. Unplug the courtesy light timer and use your ohmeter to determine if the door jamb switch is closed circuit (to ground) with the door closed. The wire on the timer socket that goes to the jamb switches is white.
Tech Contributor
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 9,933
Likes: 103
From: Peoria Arizona.. Resident Gold Cylon
Interior lights turn on when the door jamb switch is closed circuit (door open). If the door jamb switch is shorted to ground, your lights will stay on all the time. Also, the door jamb switch goes to the courtesy light timer and a defective timer can also keep the lights on all the time. Unplug the courtesy light timer and use your ohmeter to determine if the door jamb switch is closed circuit (to ground) with the door closed. The wire on the timer socket that goes to the jamb switches is white.
Le Mans Master
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 8,753
Likes: 9
From: Louisiana
Not sure about the 84, but look at the door ajar switch.
I ordered a door ajar switch for my 92 ($15). Went to install and noticed the new switch and the old switch looked different. The new switch has a "tab" in the middle that stuck out and the old one looked like the "tab" was pushed all the way in. I used a flathead screwdriver and pulled the "tab" out a little on the old one and closed the door. The lights went out. I think the same switch was used on all the C4's.
I ordered a door ajar switch for my 92 ($15). Went to install and noticed the new switch and the old switch looked different. The new switch has a "tab" in the middle that stuck out and the old one looked like the "tab" was pushed all the way in. I used a flathead screwdriver and pulled the "tab" out a little on the old one and closed the door. The lights went out. I think the same switch was used on all the C4's.
Team Owner
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 20,333
Likes: 262
From: Summerland B.C. Canada
There were some threads on bypassing and repairing the timer, maybe a search of the Archives will yield those.
Here is the location from my 86 manual, good chance it's where yours is.
http://members.shaw.ca/agent86/Court...20Location.pdf
Here is the location from my 86 manual, good chance it's where yours is.
http://members.shaw.ca/agent86/Court...20Location.pdf
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Burning Brakes
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 780
Likes: 0
From: New Port Richey Florida
yes near the ecm at least it is on my 86, not an easy task getting to it, it's taped to a main wiring harness right behind the bread box, I never could find it until I decided to take the bread box out and replace it with a panel, when I did that there it was right in front of the ecm. in my case the interior lights worked irratic and replacing the timer fixed the problem. Good luck getting to it though, maybe some one has a better way than mine.
Drifting
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,326
Likes: 18
From: Los Angeles California
I hate electrical problems. Get this, in my case, the courtesy lights would be on at all times they were supposed to be off, and vice versa. The cargo lamps would always stay on but would vary in intensity. It ended up being because the orange wire that provides power to the courtesy lights was shorted to ground. Meanwhile the cargo lamp circuit, whenever it wasn't grounded by the courtesy lamp switch, was travelling backwards through the courtesy lamp circuit on its way to ground, this powering the courtesy lamps at exactly the time that they weren't supposed to be powered. All this because I let a wire slip behind an interior trim screw and get pierced and grounded out by the screw.
Pro
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 541
Likes: 2
From: Kalama WA
