'62 dash lights and tail lights out

[William F.]

Dan, Richard, and others with electrical expertise, I need help. I posted pat of my problems in another thread about headlight switches, but switch doesn't appear to be problem. A month or so ago, instrument lights quit working. The gages themselves work other than the fuel gage giving erroneous 1/4 reading when tank is full. Courtesy/map light was working but not now, latter may be a red herring, maybe a bulb. I changed headlight switch and same problem. On further investigation, I also have no tail running lights or brake lights- all 4 tail lights flash when activated but not otherwise; front turn signal lights also work work. On dash, turn indicator lights and brake on warning lights work as do high and low beam headlights and dash high beam indicator works ( one of my non halogen low beams is burning out-dim on low and goes out on high beam-any relation to above problems?) The fuse in lowermost socket marked "instruments' is good. Have just done visual checks of other fuses. What can be the problem.
Will appreciate help! Thanks in advance

[William F.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

Neither the courtesy or the map lights work, so must be part of problem. These were working previously even after instrument lights quit but not now. Don't guess I didn't get some of the connectors lined up right between switch and multi wired connector and not making connections when I changed out the switches?

[Dan D.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

Wow, where do I begin. Well, first off, what is the general condition of your harness? It fairly new, or is it old with corrosion and frayed wires/terminals? Sounds like you have more than 1 problem here.

Tail lights and brake lights are protected by a 15 amp fuse. Check all fuses in the fuse box. Also, I have seen corrosion on the wires in back of the fuse box. 2 screws pull it out where you can see it.

You have to break this down and check one circuit at a time and get it working before moving on to another circuit.

Are you sure you have the wires back on the switch correctly? The orange wire on the switch is the feed from the fuse and powers the tail lights, brake lights, and courtesy light. Remove all the wires from the switch, connect only the orange feed wire and the black tail/brake light wire. See if you can get this much working, and then we can move on.

-Dan-

[William F.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

They weren't in correctly when I checked. Some were bent and sticking outside of switch . I corrected this but same song. ( I didn' t pull the orange and black wires out of the connector "box" but can see them making contacts with prongs on switch so should be ok unless not enough tension to hold them in contact. But as said, Problem with no instrument lights at least, started before I swapped switches thinking the switch was the problem. When I check under dash fuse box with V meter, pos on one then the other side of each fuse and neg on a screw on clutch pedal, get 3V on all except the next to top one which reads 12V with key on- Get nothing with key off, thought these were always supposed to be "hot".I checked with fuses in place. What next? Check back side of fuse box? How about that connector I see on engine side of firewall?

[Richard M.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

William, Dan has some good things to try.

In addition, it sounds like you may have a bad ground at the headlights if a Low beam goes out when you switch to high beam, or simply a bad bub. Remember that the Low beam has 2 filaments, one for low, then switches to the High beam filament.

3V on the other fuses is a telltale of some bad wiring somewhere or connector corrosion. There is no connector at the firewall "bulkhead" like on the C2's. If it's the dimmer switch connector you are thinking of, that could be a issue only if a problem when switching to Low/High beams.

This is what the fuse panel looks like. Notice the spade terminals on the backside. It is common for them to get corroded and cause a voltage drop. If you remove the fuse panel to inspect it, just make certain to disconnect the battery first.



Red is Main power to part of the panel and comes directly from AMMETER and is always powered.

Orange is for courtesy, tail(via HL switch and only when IGN is RUN) & brake lamps. This "fused" wire IS always powered (if top fuse is good). THis fuse is also the feed via the HL switch which then feeds the bottom fuse INSTR LAMPS via the Gray wires seen below.

Large Pink is from IGN switch(RUN) to power accessories( Radio(Yellow) Heater(Brown), Park Brake Alarm(separate wire plug) )

The small gauge Pink and Yellow at the bottom of the photo are for the directional flasher, Pink being the feed from IGN RUN and is tied to that large Pink wire in the harness.

Edit.....As Dan mentioned in next post, Meter ground should be at cluster backside on unpainted metal somewhere. The pedal may sometimes not be a good solid ground(via rod to Z-bar to frame to engine) so it's not really a perfect meter ground. The pedal frame that bolts to the underside of the cluster, bolted to the master cylinder with the lines bolted to the frame and the steering column tube itself(horn uses the tube for ground) are all a good ground for a meter, but you have to bite into the metal beyond paint to be certain.

[Dan D.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

Bill, what connector on the engine side of firewall? Photo?

Clutch pedal is not a good ground. Clutch pedal swings in plastic bushings. Use the gauge cluster case for ground.

Orange wire is ignition switched 12V and feeds tail/brake and courtesy. Red wire on headlight switch is for headlights and front parking, and is hot all the while.

Probably first thing to fix is the 3V problem. That is not good. Lets get to having 12V on the fuse panel with the ignition on. Should be 12v on one side of the brake/tail and courtesy fuses. Rich's photos of the fuse panel will help you with this.

I'm also thinking that you might have a short somewhere in dash lights. Pull that fuse right out for now. You wont have dash lights, but you will isolate any shorts or problems in the instrument light wiring.

-Dan-

[Richard M.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

Dan,

Me thinks his fuse panel has corrosion on the Orange Terminal which is downstream of the Top fuse which is fed by constant RED behind the panel, or a combo of both the RED and Orange, or just plain rusty or corroded fuse clips.

Since the top fuse ORG then powers the HL switch feed for the Tail lamps, and also for the IGN OFF Brake Lamps, and then via the HL switch back to the INSTR LAMPS bottom fuse, it all leads me to think his fuse panel is crusty somewhere in the Orange path.

Bill,

When you get the fuse panel removed(battery disconnected first) and carefully turned for inspection, see if you can take some photos of the backside of the panel and in particular those RED and ORG terminals like shown in my photo.

Rich
PS I edited my post above and explained some stuff a little better and fixed some spulling and gremmer.

[Dan D.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

As Rich says, inspect the fuse panel very closely. I hope it can be cleaned if corroded as the fuse panel is not serviced separately. It is an integral part of the harness - with rivets.

Once you have determined that the fuse panel is okay, then put it back in place and leave ALL the fuses OUT. This will disable all the lights on the car except the headlights. Headlights are not fused, they are protected by the circuit breaker integral to the headlight switch.

So the first thing to do is get the headlights working. Connect up the battery and put the headlight switch in the parking light position. Front parking lights should be on. Nothing else. If this checks out, then put the headlight switch in the headlight position. Front parking lights should go out and the headlights should come on. Check both upper and lower beams. If they do not work properly, then fix them now. If they do strange things then a poor ground is most likely your problem as Rich has said. I don't know where ground is actually terminated on 62s, but Rich should know that.

Once you get the headlights working then we can add the fuses back in - one at a time and check out each circuit before going on to the next one.

One by one you will get the car powered back up. When you are confronted with multiple problems that don't make sense, then what you have to do is break the system down into its individual pieces, and get that part working before moving on to the next one. Make sense?

-Dan-

[William F.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

Thanks,
Let me clarify a few things to help you help me. Only thing wrong with headlights is one low beam is burning out-black inside. Otherwise headlights fine. When headlight switch is in parking brake position, only the passenger side light comes on. I'll check V at fuse holders again.Will get around to checking back of fuse panel, Could I check that switch is making good connection to dash, tail and brake lights by running a jumper wire between orange and black connections on switch with harness plug connected to switch with headlight switch in on position and key on or would this short something out? Could I just jump the orange and black together on just the plug with it not connected to switch? Switch doesn't have to be screwed to metal dash while testing to make a ground, does it?
Interestingly, there's a black wire with a small ring conector hanging loose under dash coming out part of harness that doesn't go to switch. Prupose? It may have been there all along, don't know.
Thanks

[William F.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

Dan and Rich,
Went back under dash, got a good ground and tested all fuse holders, leaving fuses in place, with V meter. Seem to have found some problems. On top fuse get 12V ONLY on one side- the outboard side is 0. Lowermost fuse reads only 3 V on each side of holder. All in between top and bottom most read a good 12V. Top 15 A fuse looks good. Should I replace it with new one just in case and recheck? Do you think corrosion on back of panel sounds like likely problem with these findings? If some of connections and built in connections are really bad, any way to repair or replace?
Thanks again for help .

[William F.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

Well, I found and corrected the problem but embarrassed to tell you what it was. While the top most fuse looked good while in its hard to see location, after I checked it with V meter as you suggested, and got the cold on one side reading pulled fuse and found it was blown. Replaced with 75 cent new fuse and everything works,. Hope there's no underlying cause for blown fuse. Thanks for the tutorials on fuse box and harness. I did learn a lot and you pointed me in the right direction. In med school they taught "common things are common" and "when you her hoof beats, think of horses, not zebras." Should have thought of that. Thanks again.

[Richard M.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

Glad you fixed it. It may be just a old fuse, or.....
You may in fact are seeing the result of corroded fuse clip or terminal on Orange wire path. Was the blown fuse a 15A?

Rich

[Dan D.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

Bill, does this mean all your lights are fixed by this, including the dash lights?

-Dan-

[Richard M.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

I bet it did as the top fuse TAIL LAMPS is the feed to the HL switch which is wired to(GRAY) and feeds the bottom fuse INSTR LAMPS. This was designed to be a telltale to driver that Tail Lamps were dead if fuse was blown.

Rich

[William F.]

Re: '62 dash lights and tail lights out

Dan and Richard,
Yes everything works. To answer question about fuse size, the blown one was 20A, not the specified 15A. This 20A had been in at least since I bought the car 4 years ago and no electrical trouble till this episode. I replaced it with a 15A. If it blows again, guess will have to inspect connections on back of fuse panel. Can you think of anything else that might have caused fuse to have blown? One of my non halogen low beam headlights is on the way out. Low beam filament is dim, high filament out with blackening in glass. Would this cause more current draw?? Will drive the car this evening and see how it goes-so far just just checked in garage wtih lights on for a few seconds.
Thanks