garrett1308

Hope yall can help me out with this old of a vehicle. My buddy has a 1968 impala. We were messing around trying to get the dome light to work. Ended up getting it to come on like it should (bad connection on the ground). All was working well, until a minute later, it started to smoke a little, then blew the fuse. (I bumped the light and touched a prong of the hot wire to the metal frame of the dome light) We pulled the light out, insulated the prongs that the bulb slides into, and threw another fuse into the fuse box, and the courtesy lights came on and stayed on. We checked the door jamb switches and the switch on the dash, all of which worked fine. The radio also quit working, but its fuse is fine. It is not a stock radio and it may get its power from the cigarette lighter which shares the same circuit with the courtesy lights.

The dome light has two wires which hang down and have prongs to grasp either end of the light. One is white & red, and the other is white & yellow. Put a multi meter to it, and found continuity from the frame to the yellow and white wire, and from the frame to the red and white wire. The smoke came from when one of the prongs came into contact with the metal frame of the dome light. The car still runs fine, dash lights, head lights, tail lights etc all work as they should. Its just that the courtesy lights stay on full time.

I'm going to go ahead and rule out the door jamb switches, when pressed the courtesy lights dim a little. It's a four door car, but only the front doors have jamb switches.
The wires aren't bare up in the dome light area, I pulled the headliner down a little bit, and both the wires have insulation for a couple of feet.

Any one have any idea where it could be messing up at?

Thanks -Garrett

a55bruce

Did you check the headlight/dash dimmer switch ? The dash dimmer usually has a dome light switch so you can turn on the dome light without opening the door.