Door switches don't operate dome light

[Ford Blue blood]

Rich the Kia unit will be easy.  Put the switch to the "on" position and check for continuity between the three leads.  One of them will be ground and the other will be 12V battery.  Next put it in the "door" position and repeat the test between the three leads, the one that is common to both test will be the ground.  If I were a betting man I'd bet the black is ground.  I will have to go out and look at my CV dome light to see how it is wired up.  Get back to you on that one.

[RICH MUISE]

awesome...thanks Bill. I finally got the insulation put up on the roof, and right now I'm running 3 wires up to the dome light...then gonna get some split coil wire wrap put on where it feeds thru the door post. After that I'll be able to get the headliner in, then decide which dome light looks best at that point. I need to call you some time next week to talk about my wiper motor..I think I have your phone number someplace, but if you could pm it to me again it would save alot of looking.
thanks again

[Ford Blue blood]

Rich PM sent.  The CV is most likely wired as such, the green is 12V, black/blue from the door switches and black the ground.  Both of them that I have have no wires.  Look on the inside, the runs will go to a lamp and to the two switches.  The two switches get the 12V, the lamp gets the door switch signal and all three lamps should have a common run hooking them together, that is the ground.  Be carefull mounting it as the screws (in mine at least) went into a non-conducting material glued to the roof.

If this makes no sense shoot me a pic of it....

[RICH MUISE]

Bill...thanks for checking it out. I got your PM. If I understand you correctly, the instalation in the CV was into a non conducting material, so those screws are NOT the ground, and I need to use some other mounting places where my mounting screws will not be thru the copper runs, so as not causing a short to the steel roof of the '57. It will be the CV unit I'll be using, by the way. I got my headliner up and ready for seam pulling and stretching, and I can tell I do not have enough depth for the Kia unit.

[Ford Blue blood]

Yup, the copper runs are hot.  In my 66 Ranchero I used a piece of plywood that just happened to jam between the only structure under the roof skin, still glued it up there, and glued a second piece on to it.  Sorry no pics, that was over 10 years ago.

[RICH MUISE]

I'll figure something out for mounting...it'll be difficult to move the mounting hole location the way the inner piece is made. I just may use the original location and use nylon screws and threaded inserts on the roof.

[Ford Blue blood]

Look at the nylon inserts the early (60s - 70s) Ford alternators used on the field and stator terminals to isolate the studs from the case.

[RICH MUISE]

Thanks for the suggestion. I found some rubber well nuts that will work "well" to isolate the mounting screws...I'll still use nylon screws to add to the assurance of no shorting out.

[RICH MUISE]

Bill, me choosing the Crown Vic dome light turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The new headlight switch I had purchased from Ron Francis would not have worked (without a $35. 'reversal' kit) with the old style ('57) dome light because the"modern style" headlight switches switch the ground rather than the old style positive switching.

[RICH MUISE]

Rich PM sent.  The CV is most likely wired as such, the green is 12V, black/blue from the door switches and black the ground.  Both of them that I have have no wires.  Look on the inside, the runs will go to a lamp and to the two switches.  The two switches get the 12V, the lamp gets the door switch signal and all three lamps should have a common run hooking them together, that is the ground.  Be carefull mounting it as the screws (in mine at least) went into a non-conducting material glued to the roof.

If this makes no sense shoot me a pic of it....

OK..I'm at this point finally. First off, I believe from what I am checking you are correct in how the CV dome light operated. Secondly, I'm a little confused as to exactly what you meant by "the lamp gets the door switch signal". Were you talking ground or hot? Added to the mix is I now have a headlight switch which has one ground-switching wire to operate the domelight. I would like to have the switched map lights work at any time, but the shared ground seems like it is making that unlikely to happen( as far as my very limited expertise is concerned), without having the headlight switch in the dome-light-on position, or a door open. I can live with that if I have to, but I am wondering if there are any problems you can see with my alternative solution....
Since the "ground" is shared, is there any reason why I can't run the 12v allways hot to that black wire, making it a shared hot,and use the green and bk/bl wire as seperate grounds. I was thinking I could run the switched map lights ground to an always grounded terminal, and run the unswitched lamp ground wire thru the door switches and headlight switch.
If that sounds feasible, I'll draw a little schematic of what I was thinking and post it.
Thanks Rich

[Ford Blue blood]

That will not let the map lights work.  Run 12V on the door switches and forget the head light switch, you need 12V to the map light switches in the assembly for them to come on independently.  The "lamp gets the door switch signal" is reference to the foil runs.  The foil run that goes directly to the bulb in the center is the door switch wire.  

Easy fix for this.  Get a small relay, run 12V to the coil (86) and the wiper lug (30), tie the lug that is open (87) to the door switch line and run the ground for the relay coil (85) to the headlight switch "dome light" ground switch.  I will draw up a scematic with realy numbers and hook ups tomorrow and post it.

[RICH MUISE]

You're the man Bill. Thanks. That's awesome."easy fix for this"..LOL..it'll take me a while to digest this. It'll take about 3 more notches for me to reach "layman" stage.
Where do the numbers for the relay come from...are you referencing a specific relay, or are those numbers standardized for all relays?, and what is the function of the relay...is it sending 12v power to the dome light when the ground from the headlight switch is closed?

Just last night I made a statement in the general discusion area about wiring kits from Ron Francis being generally easy, unless you are doing something off the norm, and then you're pretty much on your own. This is a perfect example..I just didn't expect it to come up so quickly after my post.when I called the RF tech line, and asked about how to wire up the door switches and dome light I was trying to use, I got more questions than answers...although after I hung up I got to thinking the questions they were asking made sense if they had wrongfully assumed I was trying to hook up to existing dome light/door switch wiring.
P.S. Just picked up a relay at AutoZone, so I now know the numbers you refered to are standard on all relays. I picked one up that had the 87A lug, but I had the option of a relay without that lug. Is that what I should have gotten? Got to thinking on the way home I should have picked up a pre-wired plug-in. I know I can just use female disconnects, but with the plug-in I won't have to worry about which wire goes where 5 years from now if I have to unplug or replace it.

[Ford Blue blood]

Rich you got a handle on this stuff!  87A don't matter, it does nothing in this application.  I would recommend getting the plug for it, just too easy...

[RICH MUISE]

Bill...we're gettin' there...but of course I have some questions.
1. On the schematic you drew an arrow from 30 to 87a, and then a short line out of 87a. From your last post, you said 87a doesn't matter, so I'm not sure what's what on that.
2. the wire from 87/door switches you show going to the dome light. It's the blk/blue wire on the dome light that feeds the center, unswitched, bulb. I believe it's this bk/bl wire you want me to hook 87/door switches to. Is that correct?
3.what do I do with the ground wire out of the dome light? You're showing the dome light grounded on the schematic, and since we are switching power rather than ground now, I'm assuming the dome light can now just be grounded in the normal sense?? (I realize I still can't attach the light to the roof with conducting materials because the mounting holes go thru the 'foil runs')
4. (and you thought I had a handle on it..lol)...Am I running a (4th) power feed up to the green wire on the dome light?  4th: one for door switches, one each for #30 and #86
Thanks for your patience Bill.
Rich

[Ford Blue blood]

Bill...we're gettin' there...but of course I have some questions.

1. On the schematic you drew an arrow from 30 to 87a, and then a short line out of 87a. From your last post, you said 87a doesn't matter, so I'm not sure what's what on that.  "Sorry for the confusion, that arrow represents the relay arm that moves when the solinoid has power applied."

2. the wire from 87/door switches you show going to the dome light. It's the blk/blue wire on the dome light that feeds the center, unswitched, bulb. I believe it's this bk/bl wire you want me to hook 87/door switches to. Is that correct?  "Yes."

3.what do I do with the ground wire out of the dome light? You're showing the dome light grounded on the schematic, and since we are switching power rather than ground now, I'm assuming the dome light can now just be grounded in the normal sense??  "Yes, that is correct."  (I realize I still can't attach the light to the roof with conducting materials because the mounting holes go thru the 'foil runs')

4. (and you thought I had a handle on it..lol)...Am I running a (4th) power feed up to the green wire on the dome light?  "You will run power (battery) to the green wire, it will go to the switches for the map lights."    4th: one for door switches, one each for #30 and #86  "No, just one wire from the junction point of the door switches and the 87 terminal..Thanks for your patience Bill.
Rich


font=Verdana][/font]Forgive me if I am getting too basic......the easiest way to do the wire hook up is pick a 12V battery source at the fuse panel and run that wire to the drivers door switch, run a second wire from that wire to the other door switch and another wire to terminals 86 & 30 on the relay.  Next run a wire from the second terminal on the passenger switch to the second terminal on the drivers door switch, connect that terminal on the drivers door switch to terminal 87 on the relay and then run that wire to the center light in the dome light assembly.  From the same 12V battery source at the fuse panel run a second wire to the switches in the dome light assembly.  You should have a total of two wires going up to the dome light assembly, three if you want to run the ground down to under the dash.  Last but not least hook up terminal 85 to the switched ground in the head light switch.