Chasing away those pesky electrical gremlins in the dashboard!!

A nice long weekend gave me a chance to spend some quality time with Old Biddy. I seemed to have solved most of the electrical problems…but not all of them.

My first task was to replace the new speedometer bulb sockets with the old ones. I decided to solder the wires together rather than to dry splice them since I will be connecting the other instrument bulbs to this red with white stripe wire circuit later. After I took the picture, the connection was wrapped with electrical tape to prevent shorting.

 

And after I connected the bulbs, I flicked the interior panel light switch and they still did not work. For some reason, I switched the exterior light switch on at the same time and then they turned on. Just a quirky Lucas thing, I guess. Notice the faint glow on the dark picture…it is much brighter in person!

 

Next I had to solve the non-working taillight dilemma. I found that I had two crossed wires and a backwards bulb socket set up on the driver side. When I originally installed these, I put the turn signal bulb on the bottom and the brake/taillight socket on the top.

 

I switched everything around, flicked the switch... and viola (not violin or cello)! Taillights work!!

 

But no brake lights! I tried to jumper the switch and they still did not work. I also jumpered the wire straight from the fuse box to the power wire and still nothing. Gotta chase this one down with a voltmeter or test light…not going to be a fun job.

 

Since most of the wire work is done on the dash itself , I decided to put the parcel shelf in place but not fasten it just yet. I mainly wanted to do this because it is a tight fit and the heater switch and cables connect to it. If anything else comes loose, I could still easily fix it now.

 

The fabricated instrument panel will live here. I found that I need to fabricate a couple of fastening tabs for it then weld them on. More on that in a couple weeks.

 

I also changed out the floor headlight switch with the one John gave me. The headlights went on!!! Well, there is no picture to document this because a moment later they went out. The switch went bad. I jumpered the wires together to bypass the switch and the headlights (both low and high beams) went back on again. At least I know what is wrong now.

Once the brake light gremlin is chased away, the headlights work, and the heater is connected and working, I will be happy to start the next phase of the operation…the sub-panel.

Thanks for visiting.

Toddy