Strange 65-66 Parking lamp
 

Have you ever seen a parking lamp like the one in the photo with an external wire on the base? Believe it or not, quite a few of these were installed on several 65 and 66 Corvettes at the factory.

Just pulled one from a feb built 65 that didn't have that

There's a reason why many of these lamps actually made into production with an external ground wire. The two hot wires run through the black sleeve. For Corvette, all three wires normally ran through the sleeve.

These lamps were actually used in an earlier GM full size car. That car would not have required the extra ground wire as the housing would automatically be the ground in a steel car.

During the 65-66 era, quite a few of these passenger lamps were modified to be used in Corvettes by adding the external ground wire.

Any guesses as to the make/year of the GM passenger car that used these lamps? :)

ok! you have peaked my curiosity !:lurk: i have seen those before but only in vettes..:toetap: so spill the beans critter!:thumbs:

Ok, the original housing and socket assembly was used in 1960 Pontiac's. It will probably look familiar to anyone here that knows Pontiacs.

I don't know the exact reason why these modified Pontiac lamps showed up at the Corvette line but I suppose there was some reason why the supply of Corvette units was short.

There's one more interesting point though. :)

Here's another set. It's interesting that the wire color changed from green to white.

'60 Pontiac full size. The housing even had the angled mating surface.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...63f4840644.jpg

Funny that I found this, in the middle of replacing my 67 Camaro passenger side parking light and when I get that complete going to repair or replace the passenger side parking light on my 64 Corvette and will let you know what I found when I remove it.

Excellent post. I just ran into this the other day as I was going thru the NCRS 65 judging guide. That book will drive you crazy.

Anyways, I have the green ground wire with black over spray on it at the drivers side. Car has never been painted black as far as I know. I do not see one at the passenger side.

My June 65 vert has a 66 grille in it which may indicate it suffered a tap in the front many years ago. I do not know if the sockets are original but both look as if they've been there a very long time.

[QUOTE=65BotaHam;1594397335]Excellent post. I just ran into this the other day as I was going thru the NCRS 65 judging guide. That book will drive you crazy.

/QUOTE]

I posted this information over there about 10 years ago. No one believed it until a few others posted pictures of their lamps that had the additional ground wire.

Also, if you take a close look at a lens, you will see two different part numbers. One is 5950982 with the word crystal. That would be the clear lens for the 60 Pontiac. The other number is 5954440 with the word amber. That's because the original mold was modified to include the new number for 63 Corvette but could still be used for both.

The original 1st design lamps for early 63 Corvettes had issues with water entering the area behind the lens. Because the original lamp design and placement for Pontiac was not subject to direct water/salt spray, it wasn't necessary to seal the assembly as well as it was for Corvette. For Corvette, as we know, the lamp was positioned directly in front of a wheel/tire assembly that tossed water at it. The early units leaked and before long, they failed. There were a few changes made during the model year. One was a boot over the area where the wires entered the socket. Another was the screws that retained the lens. Originally, the screws went through the back of the housing and were exposed to salt spray. The correction was a change in the original mold that included an area that covered the exposed screw.

Original 63-67 lenses were a darker shade of amber than replacements that GM sold years later. I was told that this was because of some federal spec on lighting but I don't know if that's actually the reason.