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Got a laugh out of this one

R

RustyRed

Active Member
Well, the good news is my gauge lights are working just fine now. All I did was take the fuse out and look at it. It looked good so I put it back in and the lights work just fine. Not sure, maybe the fuse got knocked slightly loose or something when reinstalling the harness.

However, my radio doesn't work now, LOL!

I wired the hot wire to the yellow three prong deal. When I first installed the harness the radio worked fine sitting in the garage when testing everything. But when I started driving around it was loosing power on and off. I blew it off when it seemed to fix itself but now it won't work at all. I'll have to recheck my wiring on the radio. Always something isn't it. I gotta admit I actually got a laugh out of this one.

I don't think the two issues are related in any way.

At least I can take the car up to the local cruise in type meeting the local car group has tomorrow night. I was gonna go even with no gauge lights if I had to but sure will be nice to have them and I can live without the radio.
 
Oh...they might be related, just not in the way you thought. Many times, the clips in fuse boxes are corroded and they don't make good enough contact with the fuses themselves, giving you precisely the symptoms you're seeing. This is especially true for 64.5-66, because the fuse box is in the line of water leakage along the inner fender area from bad windshield or cowls.
 
I do, but I don't fiddle with the fuses once they are in. If they give good contact, I have to assume that it is good to go. If you want, remove it and send it back to me on my nickel and I'll see if that is the problem.
 
I had them working ealier. But just now when heading to the ice cream shop after the street meet deal the lights are out again...on the plus the radio is suddenly working great again....lol!

Not a big deal and I can make it home without the lights. Should be heading that way as soon as the boys finish their ice cream.
 
Got it all working again....someone forgot to hook the radio's ground wire back up. Hence why it would sometimes work and others not...depended on where the wire was hanging and if it was touching metal or not.

Replaced the fuse and put in the new lights for the gauges and they are working now so gonna see what haapens next couple of times I drive it.
 
You gotta hate somebody for doing a piss-poor job, eh? *LOL*
 
"Midlife" said:
You gotta hate somebody for doing a piss-poor job, eh? *LOL*
Click to expand...

Yep, but unfortunately I can't fire myself, LOL!

I think the deal with the fuse is you have to get it pretty much in the middle. If I use my knife blade to push it towards the top or towards the bottom it doesn't work. In the middle it works great. I did put in my new LED bulbs while I was at it. I can pretty much take out the gauge cluster in my sleep at this point, LOL!

My best guess is the boys were messing around in the car at the street meet deal last night and probably bumped the fuse box. I took it for a drive to pick them up from a friends house after I get everything working and it's still working still.

Now I have to pull the back seat apart again at some point. Every so often those little orange rubber roller things get screwed up. I can pull the window up and then crank the handle to keep it up. I hate how the darn thing gets screwed up about once every couple of months but so goes it with an old car I suppose.
 
The fuse should work in any position in the holder. Sounds like corrosion....

The window rollers should work for a heck of a long time. There may be an alignment problem causing binding on the tracks. If the roller is not damaged when you go into it, then I would look at the locking clip, or proper positioning, or maybe lubrication. My last '66 had a roller that popped off all the time until I reformed the arm to put less sideways pressure on the roller.
 
Fuse clips: it may well be corrosion (they are very hard to remove all corrosion from!), or they simply can be worn and not grip the fuse as tightly as possible. If you can, disconnect the battery, then remove the fuses, and use a needlenose plier to clamp the empty clips together. This is a chronic problem for me while restoring, and I don't have a good solution as yet, short of replacing all clips! What I'd love to have is a good corrosion remover that I can dip the clip in and not destroy the wiring at the same time...something like a quick acid bath?

If I find a clip troublesome, I usually take a small grinding stone to it to remove corrosion at the fuse contact area. If that doesn't work, I attack the wire crimps. If that doesn't work, I then replace the clip itself with either a good OEM clip (splicing the wire outside of the fuse box) or reproduction. NPD sells replacement clips, but they are an absolute bugger to crimp (50% of them break during crimping) and they are damned expensive. I have not been able to find the vendor who makes them and buy them directly at a lower cost. Finding non-corroded fuse clips is just as difficult.
 
i had the same problem with the dash lights fuse on my 69 & it was crudded up clips. i found a piece of steel rod the same diameter & cut it to length, then took a cutoff wheel & cut notches in the sides where i could hold it with a small pair of needle nose pliers. i took a small piece of DA sandpaper with the adhesive on the back & wrapped the ends of the rod, snapped it into the fuse holder & rotated it back & forth with the pliers until it cleaned the contacts. works fine now.
 
I'll check it Pete.

Usually when I have a problem with the window though it is due to one of the boys cranking it up to the top and then they keep trying to crank it to "get it tight". I've finally trained them to only crank it snug. This time however it was yours truly who is to blame. That said, I do need to do something with the tracks. I aligned the driver's side a while back and have not had any trouble with it since (he says knocking on wood).
 
I can pull the window up and then crank the handle to keep it up.
Click to expand...


If the little plastic/nylon wheel on the end of the regulator's scissor has fallen out of the window track it will cause the above problem.
 
Rusty:
I re-read your original post, and I'm curious if you tried moving the brightness control of the dash lamps via the headlight switch. Many times the rheostat in there doesn't contact the wiper, so there's no electricity available to send to the lamps. Sometimes (and I won't name names!), folks forget that there's a setting where almost no voltage is sent to the lamps, so they always appear not to work!
 
I checked it...actually that was the first thing I checked. However, I always appreciate any suggestions since I can be kind of a ding bat at times (i.e. forgetting to hook up the ground to the radio), LOL!

They seemed to work after I played with the fuse some on Sunday. That is the only fuse I've had an issue with if the fuse is even at fault. Since I had the gauges completely removed on Sunday I also double checked where the harness plugs into the head light switch since the access was very easy coming at it from the top.

If it acts up again, I was thinking of maybe trying to figure out some way to sand the contacts some...maybe a drimmel tool on low speed or something?
 
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