under rear body spare tire light?
 

so working on adding led tail lights to a 1981 c3 some how a small light similar to the lic. plate light turned on? battery had been dying over night - how does this light get turned off and on? Thank you

it is normally turned on and off by opening and closing the doors. There is a timer/relay behind the glove box that can fail in the on position.

depending on the year theres a switch on the inside of your engine bay back near the fire wall so if the hood was open your leaving the lights on in the car ... go figure

The spare tire light is controlled by the door courtesy switches, and comes on with the interior lights. The interior lights are turned off by the timer that Melwff referred to, so if your interior lights are shutting off, then the spare tire lamp should be turning off too. The timer is designed to leave the interior and spare lights on for 30 seconds, or until the key is turned on. The timer is a square, orange, plastic box, located behind the glove box, and can easily be accessed by removing the glove box liner.

The switch at the rear of the hood is for the alarm system, not the lights. The under hood light was controlled by a mercury switch.

My car is a 70 and if the hood is up the lights in the car stay on I dont think its tide into the alarm but I never tried to lift the hood when the alarm is on ,, Sorry for the thred jack

Thankyou all, now I can investigate. Car has been bouncing in and out of body shop past dozen years and now finally not to far off from ready to roll down road again. So I do expect little issues like this to pop up. Thanks again