Are there two different types of headlight switches? my car is a 4G series 72 GS and according to the shop manual the plug and wiring is different than the 4L series. My problem is that with a new switch I only have my headlights working, no marker lights, no instrument panel lights. I jumped the conectors on the plug and every light turns on like it should. Help please. I went to napa and pep boys and both of their switches have the same wiring configuration. after some investigating , I noticed that the ac delco switch has eight conectors on it while the aftermarket ones only have 7. Is there a difference between the two switches,except for the obvious, of course. Thanks
Here's a picture of the light switch that came out of my 72 Skylark some years back. It has 7 connections.
thanks for the pic hey Larry thatnks for the pic it looks just like mine. but it doesnt make any sense the way my car is behaving. and the socket only goes in one way. but thanks anyway
On my wiring diagram, it looks as if there is a ground(off the front of the light switch) that goes to the wiper switch, and an instument panel ground tees into that wire.
grounds!!! LARRY, The funny thing is that I have taken the switch out of the equation and the lights work fine. Have you seen the eight pron switch. on myshop manual it showes two different switches and the one that corresponds to my car(model 4g) has eight prons on it. The seven pron switch is for the cars with ac. The funnies thing is that my car has been inoperable for so long that I dont recall if the markers or instrument lights worked then.
Take a look under the dash and see if there are any hanging wires you might have missed. You can also try grounding the front of the switch with your own wire. Good luck.
dont headlight switches have TWO power feeds? one through a self re-setting breaker for the headlights and one through a fuse for the parking/dash lights circuit? if so, if the fuse was blown for the dash lights, then the switch would not light the dash lights or parking lights ... but you could get them to "test" and come on if you mistakenly used the power feed for the "headlight" part switch when you were "jumping" around on the plug while testing. check for a bad ins. panel/lamps fuse. thats where my money would be.
disregard my previous post ... the headlight switch i was thinkin about was on my nephews old car (nissan stanza) on old GM cars the headlightswitch needs to be grounded good for the dash lights to work. they are grounded through it and then variably grounded by it when you use your dash light dimming feature. there has been some discussion about crossed over fialments and possble shorted sockets on this subject. when theses things happen they can drive you nuts. sometimes a small piece of rust can get in a socket (hidden in th grease) and reak havok. one or more of the following things will probably happen if this is your problem.. A. with all other lights turned off run your flashers , in your dash cluster, instead of just your turn signal indicators flashing off and on with the outside bulbs.... all of your dash lights will too. B. if your car has side marker lights, they may not work at all while you have the flashers on and no other lights turned on. C. one or both of your turn signal indicators in your dash cluster may be dimly lit all or some of the time. any, none or all of these symptoms may occur.:eek2:
success I am happy to report that YUK was absolutely right. There are two source of power to the switch and my problem was due to a bad contact in the fuse panel. once I took care of it all the lights came on , it was like christmas in New York. You guys are the best. Thanks to everyone for their help :grin: :laugh:
