Old Chevy guys (help)

Back when there was snow on the ground my car developed a rather interesting fault: When the headlights are on the "bright" indicator comes on (lights in low beam setting) and both turn signal dash indicators come on solid. The turn indicators will flash when I use my turn signal though.

I started a thread here (but i cant find it now) and I believe the thought was that it was a "dimmer switch". Well guys, today I FINALLY got my headlight switch, and high/low beam selector switch (yeah, parts for old Chevrolets take that long to get here). Alas, there was no joy to be had as the problem still persists.

So my question becomes: Is it possible that something in the backlighting of my dash is shorting out causing this odd fault? Is there something common in old Chevys that causes this?

Car in question is 1966 Impala.

Thanks.

on my '64 corvair the taillight housings grounded to the body, and there were no separate ground wires for the individual taillight bulbs. this wasn't a problem until the dissimilar metal corrosion between the aluminum housings and the steel body made the grounds weak, then the symptom was that the right taillamp would light up during the "off" cycle of the left turn signal. i soldered pigtails to the bulb sockets and used ring terminals to ground them to some existing fastener, and problem went away.

on my '88 civic, i got rear-ended and one of the stop/tail bulbs got smashed. the two filaments inside the bulb were touching. symptom was that when i pushed the brake pedal, the turn indicators in the dash lit up because some juice from the brake lamp circuit was backfeeding into the turn signal circuit through the flattened bulb.

on your '66 imp, stop tail and turn flow through the turn signal switch in the column. low and high beam flow through the dimmer switch. your parking lights (at least on the rear of the car) are illuminated when the headlamps are on, whether low or high beam and your low-beams (iirc) have two filaments inside them, one for low and one for high. so there are some possibilities:

• could be a short between a stop and a turn filament in your taillight bulbs, which would explain the turn indicators in teh dash lighting up when the headlights (and therefore the taillights) are on. This does not explain your "bright" indicator.

• could be a short between the low and high filaments in one of your low-beam headlights. explains the "bright" indicator, doesn't really explain the turn signal indicators.

• could be a poor ground between the instrument panel and the steel body / dash structure.

going way back, my 66 impala did a similar thing, check all your body grounds, fender to frame etc, also check main grounds,

sounds like I better get the wire brush out. Thanks guys. I'll let you know what I find out.

Good times.

sooooooooooo I found it.

The short version is that there is an L-bracket going from the back of my radio (original) to the firewall that broke. I just ran a ground wire across it and will make another L-bracket the next time I get a chance. As of right now, everything works good.

The long story is: I got the wire brush out. I must have cleaned every stinking wire that was in any way shape or form attached to the chassis of that danged car twice. I also started removing bulbs to see if that had any affect and found that the gripe changed when I removed the front blinker bulbs... that started a lot of focus in that direction, but no joy. Eventually I just stripped both ends of a LOOOOOONG wire, bolted one end to the - side of the battery and started touching it to things. When I touched it to the back of the lighting panel on the dash everything started to work properly As I was hooking up my temporary permanent fix I remembered that I had been wanting to look for the source of a "squeak" for about the last year. THEN I remembered I hadn't heard the "squeak" in a looooooong time. THEN I noticed the broken L-bracket on the radio and put two and two and two together.

The L-bracket was the squeak, eventually it broke fixing the squeak, and must have removed a ground to my chassis from dash causing the lighting problem.

I also wacked the heck out of my head on my glove box today.

Good times. -Bill

It feels good to get stuff like this fixed, doesn't it?

Congrats

Hungary Bill wrote: The L-bracket was the squeak, eventually it broke fixing the squeak, and must have removed a ground to my chassis from dash causing the lighting problem. I also wacked the heck out of my head on my glove box today. Good times. -Bill

Sounds like the ol' "It stopped leaking by itself" maneuver. Usually means it's empty!

Well, at least you know your grounds are grounded to the ground.

This thread reminds me that I need to check out why my reverse lights dont work in my old chevy.

RossD wrote: It feels good to get stuff like this fixed, doesn't it? Congrats

Yo danged right!

kind of ashamed to admit it's been almost a year... but I DID get some spare parts out of the deal

fidelity101 said: This thread reminds me that I need to check out why my reverse lights dont work in my old chevy.

Had the same problem. Mine was the reverse light switch on the column by the driver's side knee. The little "knob" on the switch came out of it's hole on the linkage...

Good times.

Appleseed wrote: Well, at least you know your grounds are grounded to the ground.

AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH. Thanks a LOT.

I finally had her pushed WAY down in the ol' memory banks and here you have to bring her bubbling to the surface.

i'm going to go ahead and give myself a lowercase berkeley yeah since i kinda hit it with my third bullet point above. ;-)