Interior light

[rtaylor]

When I open my doors, the interior roof light does not go on. However, when I push the light to manually turn it on, it does light up. I pushed both pin switches on each door, they seem top move in and out fine, but don't activate the light. Why do you think it doesn't light up? I am missing something? Is there another switch someplace that I don't know about.

I know in most cars there is a swicth for door/off/on.

Thanks guys.

[MikeW]

The barrel switch in the doors is the only switch involved here. It may be a bad ground at the switch itself. Use a thin blade to pop the switch out. You'll see that, on the driver side, there's only one wire going to the switch. Use a jumper wire to directly run that to a known ground and see if it lights up. If so, the switch itself is not grounded properly. If it doesn't make a difference then you'll have to trace it from there.

[rtaylor]

Thanks Mike. I'll give that a shot tonight.

[EScanlon]

Mike, on the driver's side for the 71 there actually should be TWO wires and ONE on the passenger side.

The second wire connects to the "Key-In" buzzer circuit.

E

[rtaylor]

Would the red wire for the key in buzzer under the ignition housing that is disconnected in my car cause the light not to go on, since it is on the same circuit?

[Arne]

No, disconnecting the buzzer won't hurt it. (The buzzer is disconnected on my yellow car - light works fine.) In my experience, the most likely issue is a lack of good ground contact for the door switches. Pop the switches out - I think you'll likely find that as you pry the switch out of the hole the light will come on. So pull the switch, clean up the hole to clean metal, clean the rust off the switch tabs, and re-insert it. That will probably do it. You may also want to clean up the pointed contacts on the switches while you have them out.

[rtaylor]

Thanks. I was at the Colorado River water skiing the last couple days, Wish I could bolt something on my body for better performance, like I can the Z. Not as nimble as I used to be.

I will check all this weekend. Now another electrical problem. I had the fuse block out when I installed the am radio. Now, the horn and emergency flashers don't work. I must have pulled some wires loose on the fuse block. I have to check that out as well.

[geezer]

Could be, you shook something loose while working on the radio. The one thing the horns & hazard flashers have in common is the 12V+ feed that comes from the white wire on the voltage regulator and goes to the fuse box. It feeds two fuses. One is routed to the horn relay and the other is routed to the hazard switch and also the emergency flasher. It looks to be unrelated to your dome light problem.

Does your glove box light, map light or clock work? If not, the problem with the dome light is probably not the ground at the door switches. More often than not it is a ground but in this case opening either door will provide a ground path, so I would check the fuse box first.

I feel your pain. Water skiing is just like riding a bicycle. You never forget how and can still pull off every stunt you ever learned. Getting out of bed the next few days is downright brutal though!

[rtaylor]

Ron, I'll check that as well. The map light worked prior to the radio install, but I did not check to see if it or the glove box light were still functioning. The clock? Never worked since I got the car. I thought that was just endemic to the breed... Thanks, I'll report back

[Arne]

The clock? Never worked since I got the car. I thought that was just endemic to the breed... Thanks, I'll report back

Both of mine work, both gain a couple of minutes per week. :classic:

[bigoak]

Gain time?...wow...I thought the mechanisms in most of these simply sloowwweeddd doowwwnnn....

My car thinks it's still 1992 the clock is so slow...

[sblake01]

All lights, guages, door switches, etc. work proprely on my Z as well as on the 810 and even the old 64 pickup.