Headlight switch and dash lights

[Ron]

In the Color schematic, section B4, where do those wires go?
I'm trying to trace the White/Yellow wire from the starter relay.

The white-yellow is grounded by the a switch in the transmmission to enable the starter. It runs to the "L" shaped plug by the ignition resistors on the driver's side firewall. It's the top hole in the "L".

[aludden]

The white-yellow is grounded by the a switch in the transmmission to enable the starter. It runs to the "L" shaped plug by the ignition resistors on the driver's side firewall. It's the top hole in the "L".

Thank you. So I guess maybe the switch is bad so they overrode it with that black wire that then drove me crazy!

Thank you all for your patience - I just want to understand. It bugs me when I don't.

So the other messy spot is the missing Fan Fail Module.
DSCN6984.JPG
They just jumpered to one side so that explains why only one of my fans is working. Hopefully it's an oversight and not a short somewhere in that fan's wiring...

[aludden]

OK, so back to the ac panel lights...
Let me see if I got this correctly:
When ignition is turned on, power comes from LG/W wire into the resistor and from there to the R/N wire. The relay feeds that power to the a/c lights. When the car lights are turned on, power from the rheostat changes the connection in the relay so that rheostat power feeds the a/c lights instead, which would be dimmer (nighttime). Am I way off?

If that is so, and I do have power in the R/O wire when the lights are on, the relay is switching off the power from the ignition but not connecting the headlight power to the lights. It's a brand new relay, but I guess it could be bad. I have a bagful of the old relays (metal covered) but I don't know which one came from that spot :-( How can I identify it? Actually, I don't know if the old relay worked or not, I just replaced them all for good measure.

[Bitsyncmaster]

The rheostat only dims the 5 binnacle lamps.

The stock wiring put full power on the AC panel lights and when the headlight switch is pressed it would dim the AC panel lights via the resistor.

Most people have removed the AC panel light relay and installed a jumper in it's place. That change keeps the AC panel lights off until you press the headlight switch. It was found some AC panels would melt with the AC panel lights on all the time.

[Ron]

Alex, You are dead on except "but not connecting the headlight" should say resistor.
It could be the resistor or the contacts in the fan fail relay.

[Ron]

It was found some AC panels would melt with the AC panel lights on all the time.

Mine is wired normal. Was that strictly "normal" heat and design ,or, bad grounds//connections there... Thinking about leds (again ;-)

[aludden]

AC lights mystery solved!!!

As I mentioned somewhere (actually, in the SEDOC thread), the rheostat connections I had were:
two wires - one wire - blank - two wires

And I couldn't see if that was correct because I could not remove the shifter knob.
Well, thanks to Nicholas R who explained to me how to take it apart, I just removed the shifter plate and saw that in fact that is not correct per DMCDW Dave's instructions.

So I changed the wires to:
two wires - two wires - blank - one wire

And that fixed it. Now the ac lights stay on when the light switch is turned on.
The four wires needed to be on one terminal, and the single wire in the other.

Well, I learned a lot of things today. Thank you!

[aludden]

Thinking about leds (again ;-)

I'm changing all my bulbs to LEDs. I still need to get the dash ones. As soon as I do, then I will take apart the binnacle and see if I can figure out the problem with the dash lights.
I'm gonna go with blue leds for the dash, and see how that looks!

[Ron]

Keep plugin'!

[aludden]

Well, my victory cry was a bit premature :-(
I put the headlight switch back in its place (I hadn't pushed it back in yet) and my ac panel lights go out again when I turn on the lights...
Don't know if that is the cause, or if it's an intermittent thing.