Help Needed - mysterious light discovered

[blackandred78]

Folks - maybe somebody out there could help me with something. I was digging around in the interior of my 1978 and had the tunnel covers off. I noticed a small light, in a wired socket, between the console trim piece and the transmission tunnel - it was back of the shifter area, just in front of the little storage tray indent - I've noticed light coming through the cracks before but thought is was from somewhere else - but I thought it was odd to have a working interior bulb buried under my console...?

 

[Art Jett]

If your '78 is like my '77 it will go in the side of the metal cover that is attached to the bottom of your console trim plate and shine in on your gear selection indicator plate. If you look under the console trim plate from the pass side, you should see a hole about 3/4" in diameter in the side of the metal cover under the shift indicator. The light socket should plug in there. Mine had the hole in the metal cover but no light socket, just the wires with nothing on the end of them.

 

[blackandred78]

Art - thanks - can't wait to get home and dig back in there - I'll look for that...

 

[Art Jett]

I hope it is that easy for you. I ended up buying a wiring diagram to find out where some of the open ended wires under my dash and console go! s

 

[blackandred78]

I hope it is that easy too! I'll dig into tonight...any experience with clocks? Mine never has worked...

 

[Art Jett]

I bought the quartz conversion kit and redid mine, but my car is still in pieces all over the shop. I hope it will work, but won't know for a while yet. The kit was easy enough to do. I guess I could hook it up to a battery and let it sit for a few days to see if it keeps accurate time. Hmm-----good thought, I just might do that tonight!

 

[blackandred78]

Glad I could help! :cool

 

[Art Jett]

I have to work to find things to do in the shop right now. My short block should be here end of next week maybe and the new TPI system should arrive a week or two after that. I think I'll order the tranny in a couple more weeks also. Then with my luck I'll probably get sent to Russia or the Middle East for a month or so. Just my luck! Oh well, it can't always be as we would like it right?

 

[blackandred78]

So Art - I think you are right about the bulb to back light the shift pattern - but the wires seem a bit too short and there is some sort of bracket/clip that looks like it would do that - I think when I had the in dash audio upgraded the installer robbed some power from the same feed to the light or something and shorted up the lead - but good discovery and easily remedied! thanks for the help...

 

[Art Jett]

Great! Glad to be of service. It's good to help aomeone else for a change, instead of always being the one asking for help. I'm off to Trinidad in the morning for a week. At least this trip will net me enough to buy my new tranny! YAHOO!

 

[jdp6000]

Great! Glad to be of service. It's good to help aomeone else for a change, instead of always being the one asking for help. I'm off to Trinidad in the morning for a week. At least this trip will net me enough to buy my new tranny! YAHOO!

Ahhh..that doesn't sound good....what are you running???

I'm sure you didn't mean it that way....

Jim

 

[Art Jett]

A little more leagal than that, but not much. I'm an oil field service technician.

 

[Evolution1980]

... buy my new tranny!

Hahahah... I had a thread where I talked about getting a 'beefier tranny', and then thought better of it and changed it to the full word. :L

Ya know, if ya ain't the first owner of your current C3, it's almost guaranteed someone bubba'd the wiring. For a while, I was starting to think my car had been a salvage or something as almost all the interior wiring looked like it had been attacked by a hilljack with a steak knife. It's such a great happy-happy-joy-joy moment when you need to dig into the wiring harness and find nothing OEM anymore...wires spliced here and there...colors changed half-way through a run, etc, etc...
:W

 

[Art Jett]

Mine wasn't really that bad. I'm the kind of guy that likes to be on the safe side. I mainly bought the diagram to be sure that what I thought some wires were was really the case. Boy it's fun getting the speedometer/tach dash panel back in place isn't it? I had to try 3 times before I stopped knocking light sockets out of the back of the gauges halfway in. AARRGH!
:crazy

 

[jdp6000]

A little more leagal than that, but not much. I'm an oil field service technician.

Even better. You can feed us stock tips....

Safe trip.

Jim

 

[Art Jett]

If I had that kind of info I wouldn't be bouncing all over the world for 6-7 months out of the year! Oh well, it almost pays the bills. Thanks for the kind wishes. Trinidad is one of the nicer places I go. I would much rather come here than be in Angola. Come to think about it; even that is better than Siberia in the winter. At least I get to play with my car on the rare occasions that I'm home.