Ok I give up! Can someone please tell me where the interior light switch is for the rear hatch on a 78?

Best I can tell - the I've got a constant ground to my interior lights (on all the time) and it dosn't look like its the doors so the only thing left is the rear hatch. According to the wiring diagram it has one but I just can't find it?

Thanks in advance.
Bret

 

Bret,

IIRC it is part of the grounding switch mounted on the passenger side hatch shock.

Dennis

 

It's at the bottom of the latch receiver -- pull the tool cover and it should be dead center under the latch.

 

Thanks gents I found it.

Ok - After disconnecting the rear hatch I still had a ground so my interior lights stayed on. I then removed the door open switches from the circuit by disconnecting Plug "U" on the relay/fuse panel and pulled pin #2. After re-inserting the plug I still had a ground and the lights came back on. Next I had a hard look at the interior lights themselves. I then discovered that the ground between the vanity mirror and the front interior light had been switched with the door/hatch return ground to aforementioned U2 on the relay/fuse panel.

Sadly this didn’t correct the problem. My worst fear is that I’ve got a pinched or grounded wire somewhere.

I'll pick it up again where I left off this afternoon.

 

I wouldn't bother with any further exploratory procedures. I've examined the x-ray in your avatar and it appears that you have a severly pinched wire creating a blockage in your posterior area. I'm afraid the condition is terminal. I'll be sending a truck by later to pick up the corpse. My condolences for your loss.

 

Well thank you Mike for your kind & heartfelt offer. But if I can live with arthritis – my 29 year old Shark can live without interior lights until I find the root cause of the problem.

Next electrical gremlins to tackle is why my wiper washers and my horn button don’t work.

BTW is the Cadillac Ranch still open up there?

 

Denial is an understandable reaction, but as you have pointed out, the condition is spreading rapidly. It's just a matter of time now.

Sorry I can't offer any real help. Good luck with your gremlins. I'm pretty sure the Cadillac Ranch has closed. I think another club opened in the same location but I'm not sure if it's still open or not. Never went there myself although I drive by it often.

 

That's it--time to rewire the interior.

Look on the bright side... at least your engine still turns over. If you're having gremlins then I'm having electrical toreros.

 

Well I plan on replacing the carpet at some point this year – so that might be a good time to address the wiring issue. I figure I’ll start by removing the relay/fuse panel and going over all the contacts & replacing the old relays & fuses.

But like I said – for now I’ll enjoy the car and not let these little anomalies get me down.

The one thing I want to do is get a hard copy of the schematics – as I hate reading them off of my laptop. Probably going to stop by a copy place this afternoon to get that done. Might even have them laminated so I can use erasable highlighters when tracing circuits.

 

Thanks Dave. Never noticed the wire going there. Of course, I don't stand on my head in the hatch very often.

Dennis

 

I try to avoid that as much as possible too.

Bret, Since you've eliminated that switch as a culprit, and I didn't see any mention of you checking this, pop the lights out of the front & rear headliners(might want to pull the fuse first). Now try troubleshooting the rest of the circuits.

It's likely that one of the interior lights is shorting to ground somewhere... BTDT.
Me --> <-- Guy who designed 928 interior light