No interior/courtesy lights

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DakotaLee
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No interior/courtesy lights

Post by DakotaLee »

I’ve got no courtesy/door/trunk lights active currently. They worked when I got the bird, but now they’re all dead. I admittedly did a terrible job with detaching the door jamb switches(were stuck on and I didn’t want any more dead batteries). Now 8 years later, I am facing ol’ Mickey Mouse in the face. I’ve attached a photo - the wire (both sides) is simply hanging, I have no idea where it should be connected. I have the wiring diagrams, and I always try that before posting - but I am definitely missing something. I looked under the dash, only thing that seems to be free is the yellow plug in the 2nd pic. (Pas. Side)

I know all the rest of the wiring is good, the courtesy lights are solid and untouched, door lights are connected, but I can’t find this crossroads. Where should I be looking?? Everything else works. Cig light, license plate light, dash lights. :drinking:

Door jamb switch wire pas. Side
EB70D567-6E87-4A59-916A-3E0533B65939.jpeg
Pas. side plug under dash
6400D928-F016-4DDD-B926-0E10D1873328.jpeg
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sseebart
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by sseebart »

I think we're going to need a little more context in order to help.

What, if anything is attached to the door jamb switch? My first thought would be to locate those wires, short them together and see if the lights come on. (This circuit goes through a relay, which is also a common point of failure.)

Based on the photo, that blue wire doesn't appear to be stock/vintage (at least to me). Where does it trace back to?

~Steve
DakotaLee
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by DakotaLee »

sseebart wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 11:39 am I think we're going to need a little more context in order to help.

What, if anything is attached to the door jamb switch? My first thought would be to locate those wires, short them together and see if the lights come on. (This circuit goes through a relay, which is also a common point of failure.)

Based on the photo, that blue wire doesn't appear to be stock/vintage (at least to me). Where does it trace back to?

~Steve
That blue wire is the only thing coming from the door jambs. It's the same on both the passenger and driver's side. They do not lead to any other wires, they're just sitting there. Definitely PO installed. I have the diagrams out and I've studied them, but I can't connect the dots here. From the looks of the manuals, there should be two wires coming from the jamb switches, but that's not the case.
The relay you mentioned may be a point of interest. Where is that located?
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RedBird64
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by RedBird64 »

I wonder if the original little round connectors are tucked back behind the hole where the switch resides. Someone rewired those switches for something else. Perhaps for a security system or ?

can you jamb your hand into that square hole behind the kick panel? If you cant feel anything you could remove the little filler panels between the hinges. Hopefully they're in there some place!

Scott
1964 Coupe Wimbledon white/Rangoon Red w/black int. Owned for 42 years. It was my folks car before that (second owners). VTCI # 12013.
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by sseebart »

DakotaLee wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 7:24 pm That blue wire is the only thing coming from the door jambs. It's the same on both the passenger and driver's side. They do not lead to any other wires, they're just sitting there. Definitely PO installed. I have the diagrams out and I've studied them, but I can't connect the dots here. From the looks of the manuals, there should be two wires coming from the jamb switches, but that's not the case.
The relay you mentioned may be a point of interest. Where is that located?
If memory serves (I replaced mine in 2013!), it's up above the steering column. Should be a grey, rectangular metal box. Scott may chime in here, but I think it's a Thunderbird-only part, so not easy to find. Most people don't expect to find a relay in the system, so they hack up the wiring at the door jambs instead. This is what I found on my passenger side:
HPIM4739.jpg
It's possible those aftermarket wires were for speakers, or as Scott said, some kind of alarm. Where do they trace back to? Unless your harness was completely hacked apart, you should be able to find part of the original wires for the jamb switches--somewhere in there.

Incidentally, this is what my relay looked like on the inside. To this day (and it's been 5 years now), I'm still a little shocked when the interior lights come on. I found a replacement from a local show that specializes in NOS Ford parts.
HPIM4753.jpg
~Steve
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by turk45 »

I hate to ask, maybe I missed something, but did you check the fuse.
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DakotaLee
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by DakotaLee »

Not the fuse panel, it was the first thing I checked. I felt around the square holes where you find the jamb buttons, but found no signs of any wiring. I'm very curious now, and will be doing a full-scale search either today or tomorrow, and will pull that relay as well. I also just pulled a 20 foot wire that lead from under the car to a spliced fuse under the dash. I know there was a botched alarm in here at some point, so I'm trying to figure out where this went whacky. Another Thunderbird mystery.
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by Terry64HT »

Looking at the terrible condition of Steve's relay in the photo of his old one, I should point out that all relays are basically the same. All that matters is enough current to fire the coil and pull the arm down and contacts on the arm are robust enough to take the load. This relay is up under the dash near the steering column and will never be seen by anyone except the mice that make a nest there during the winter. Any Bosch style relay (the black cubes) will work, most are 40/30 amps and only cost a few bucks. You can easily terminate the wires on the new relay connector to mate up with the original wire connectors if you don't want to hack your harness up.
I have even heard of people putting the guts of the Bosch style inside the housing of the original so there is no way to tell.
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RedBird64
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by RedBird64 »

Terry64HT wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 3:17 pm Looking at the terrible condition of Steve's relay in the photo of his old one, I should point out that all relays are basically the same. All that matters is enough current to fire the coil and pull the arm down and contacts on the arm are robust enough to take the load. This relay is up under the dash near the steering column and will never be seen by anyone except the mice that make a nest there during the winter. Any Bosch style relay (the black cubes) will work, most are 40/30 amps and only cost a few bucks. You can easily terminate the wires on the new relay connector to mate up with the original wire connectors if you don't want to hack your harness up.
I have even heard of people putting the guts of the Bosch style inside the housing of the original so there is no way to tell.
Terry
64HT
Terry, Some of the relays used in these cars are odd-balls. I'm a retired EE and have played with the map light relay. A cheapo Chinese junker I tried had issues with buzzing and a dithering effect (but worked). I need to try an actual Bosch relay to see if it will work (I suspect the problem was caused by the internal flyback diode).
The seat belt warning relay is an example of a very specialized relay. A simple relay wont replace it. (There's an odd schematic symbol inside of it that I can't find a meaning for but I suspect is a latch of sorts)

From what I remember, if the map light relay fails, the rear dome lights will still work with the door switches but the map lights wont come on with them. The relay makes it possible to turn on the map lights by themselves without activating the dome lights.
Ford went to a lot of bother with that relay when a simple diode (used in slightly more modern cars) would have worked great and simplified wiring.

Scott
1964 Coupe Wimbledon white/Rangoon Red w/black int. Owned for 42 years. It was my folks car before that (second owners). VTCI # 12013.
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paulr
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by paulr »

RedBird64 wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 8:54 pm
Terry64HT wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 3:17 pm Looking at the terrible condition of Steve's relay in the photo of his old one, I should point out that all relays are basically the same. All that matters is enough current to fire the coil and pull the arm down and contacts on the arm are robust enough to take the load. This relay is up under the dash near the steering column and will never be seen by anyone except the mice that make a nest there during the winter. Any Bosch style relay (the black cubes) will work, most are 40/30 amps and only cost a few bucks. You can easily terminate the wires on the new relay connector to mate up with the original wire connectors if you don't want to hack your harness up.
I have even heard of people putting the guts of the Bosch style inside the housing of the original so there is no way to tell.
Terry
64HT
The seat belt warning relay is an example of a very specialized relay. A simple relay wont replace it. (There's an odd schematic symbol inside of it that I can't find a meaning for but I suspect is a latch of sorts)

From what I remember, if the map light relay fails, the rear dome lights will still work with the door switches but the map lights wont come on with them. The relay makes it possible to turn on the map lights by themselves without activating the dome lights.
Ford went to a lot of bother with that relay when a simple diode (used in slightly more modern cars) would have worked great and simplified wiring.

Scott
You remember correctly. And I think this is typical of all 64-66, not just ours. I remember the days of restoring all my dead and missing relays and the long discussions over these issues. Now, I try to keep spares on the shelf because history repeats itself, ya know.
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Terry64HT
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by Terry64HT »

Scott, you are correct about the quality of the relays. I have put them in many of the circuits of the car (windows, dash lights, headlights, etc) and have only found one that chattered and buzzed. It was, of course, a cheapo knock-off. I replaced it with a brand name one and the problem went away. The interior lights are one of the few areas that I haven't had to redo, so I have not played with that specific one. I defer to you on it being unique, but I think most of the other ones are a pretty standard configuration.
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by RedBird64 »

paulr wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:31 pm
RedBird64 wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 8:54 pm
Terry64HT wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 3:17 pm Looking at the terrible condition of Steve's relay in the photo of his old one, I should point out that all relays are basically the same. All that matters is enough current to fire the coil and pull the arm down and contacts on the arm are robust enough to take the load. This relay is up under the dash near the steering column and will never be seen by anyone except the mice that make a nest there during the winter. Any Bosch style relay (the black cubes) will work, most are 40/30 amps and only cost a few bucks. You can easily terminate the wires on the new relay connector to mate up with the original wire connectors if you don't want to hack your harness up.
I have even heard of people putting the guts of the Bosch style inside the housing of the original so there is no way to tell.
Terry
64HT
The seat belt warning relay is an example of a very specialized relay. A simple relay wont replace it. (There's an odd schematic symbol inside of it that I can't find a meaning for but I suspect is a latch of sorts)

From what I remember, if the map light relay fails, the rear dome lights will still work with the door switches but the map lights wont come on with them. The relay makes it possible to turn on the map lights by themselves without activating the dome lights.
Ford went to a lot of bother with that relay when a simple diode (used in slightly more modern cars) would have worked great and simplified wiring.

Scott
You remember correctly. And I think this is typical of all 64-66, not just ours. I remember the days of restoring all my dead and missing relays and the long discussions over these issues. Now, I try to keep spares on the shelf because history repeats itself, ya know.
I wont even try to use my map light switch because that's when it dies! Just going to let sleeping dogs, er relays, lie.
1964 Coupe Wimbledon white/Rangoon Red w/black int. Owned for 42 years. It was my folks car before that (second owners). VTCI # 12013.
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RedBird64
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by RedBird64 »

Terry64HT wrote: Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:40 pm Scott, you are correct about the quality of the relays. I have put them in many of the circuits of the car (windows, dash lights, headlights, etc) and have only found one that chattered and buzzed. It was, of course, a cheapo knock-off. I replaced it with a brand name one and the problem went away. The interior lights are one of the few areas that I haven't had to redo, so I have not played with that specific one. I defer to you on it being unique, but I think most of the other ones are a pretty standard configuration.
Terry
64HT
Yeah, most are common Terry and I suspect even the off-shore new ones are probably going to last longer.
Many years ago I had a run-in with the "President" of a local Tbird club when he heard me telling another member how I had opened up the brake light relay and put new guts in it from Radio Shack. He had a business of selling TBird parts and angrilly told us IF YOU OPEN THEM UP THEY'RE JUNK!!!
Later, several members cornered me and asked how I had fixed it. :mrgreen:
And it still works!

Scott
1964 Coupe Wimbledon white/Rangoon Red w/black int. Owned for 42 years. It was my folks car before that (second owners). VTCI # 12013.
DakotaLee
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by DakotaLee »

Found the OEM wires on the drivers side. The lights are all connected, but the jamb button wires are hanging. Shouldn’t the lights be on? Matches up with the color codes in the manuals. Shorting the jamb wires does nothing. Same on passenger side, all grounds and lights are hooked up, no jamb button.
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Last edited by DakotaLee on Sat Apr 20, 2019 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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RedBird64
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Re: No interior/courtesy lights

Post by RedBird64 »

The two wires, blue and green, connect together and go to one side of the drivers door switch.
The other side of the switch should have a black wire coming off. The black wire should be hot all the time.

Image

I suggest you look farther up the harness with those two wires an see if the black one is cut off or tucked up someplace.

Scott
1964 Coupe Wimbledon white/Rangoon Red w/black int. Owned for 42 years. It was my folks car before that (second owners). VTCI # 12013.
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