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I want to get my Car’s interior lamp working, and the wiring will have to be replaced. I need to understand more how to access the wiring before I start, as I don’t know how the headlining is fastened in place, nor exactly how the wire may be fastened to the wood body framing. Can anyone advise?
If it’s typical of later Pierce Arrows, there’ll be a solid copper grounding wire going to the dome light, and rear lights, and you don’t have to worry about those.
The “hot” wire goes from the switch to both dome and rear lights, if original is a cloth insulated wire and the cloth is probably brittle to the touch. In addition, the hot wire, insulated, is held in place by heavy staples over the wire and into the wood. You won’t be able to just pull these out, you’d have to remove upholstery to do so.
The headliner has listings, or pieces of folded cloth, sewn to each seam (this is the standard method, although I’ve seen headliner just folded and sewn, and the extra fold material is what hangs the headliner). These cloths are then tacked to the wood cross framing in the top. You can’t just take one section loose, you have to start at the back and remove each section as you go, otherwise you can’t get to tacks. A major job.
At minimum, you’d have to remove the rear interior quarter panel on the switch side to get to the wiring, and then you might be able to fish the new wire over the headliner and into the quarters (with rear seat removed).
Whew, hard to explain. Just know you’re only dealing with one hot wire to each light, as the ground wires can stay in place and you don’t have to replace them.
If you have both a switch on the inside of the car, and a push switch that activates when the door opens, then they are wired together so that either one will activate the lights. Thus, power in to both switches, and power out to all lights from both switches (in both cases they join at a T to distribute power. Guess I could draw a diagram if that’s confusing….
My Car only has the one, single-bulb lamp in the roof above the rear passengers’ seating area. There is a switch in the passenger-side door latch pillar, with three wires. One is a ground which attaches to a body-frame bolt in the floor; the other two wires come from the top down and best I can tell one is a ground from the lamp body ( necessary because it is fastened to wood) and the other is hot 6 Volts. This hot wire comes from the firewall-mounted fuse block and is contained in the harness which passes down past the vacuum tank. The wires are all in poor condition and I can’t see any way to replace them without removing upholstery, and none of this seems easily removable. I am at an impasse for now.
I agree, without removing upholstery, you won’t be able to get to the wires. The switch is mounted in wood, so the wires have to first go through a path/hole that’s bored in the wood, then up to the dome light…you’d have to remove, or at least partially remove, the interior panels on that side of the car. These are usually held in place with small headless brads, driven through the upholstery and panel board, then the material popped over the top of the brad. Actually not that difficult to remove and replace IF the panel board is in good condition.
If the panel board is brittle, then it would be a mess trying to remove.
Attached shows a brad in place, ready to pop the upholstery material over it to hide….
Randy,
Do you have power to the switch?
If not, maybe that is the problem.
When I rewired my Series 80, did everything except the courtesy light.
It worked and I use it once every 10-years.
In any case, perhaps your problem lies between the switch and its connection to the body, which may be an easier fix.
You can always pull out your ammeter to check.
Peter
Hi, Peter, meter indicates there is power to the switch, but the wire is in such poor condition that it would be inviting disaster to try to use it. It will have to wait until after St. Louis at least.