Team Chevelle banner

'68 Trunk light?

2K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  red68chevL 
#1 ·
Hello again!
I'm wanting to put a trunk light in the 68. I believe it once had one but the harness and switch are both long gone.
I found a "Light assembly" but the question is, as there a separate switch or is the switch built into this socket like a mercury switch or???
Thanks in advance
Lance
 

Attachments

See less See more
2
#4 ·
Perfect. That's what I was hoping. Thank you

You can just daisy chain it into the trunk harness. It will only come on with the trunk lid open AND the parking lights on.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk
I will most likely hook it up that way, or run it to the dome light power so it would light when opened as long as a door was open?
 
#5 ·
Ok, here's the low down.

The pictures you have in your 1st post are of a mercury switch activated light. The picture also shows some wires with some plugs on it.

How this "kit" is to work is in the trunk there is a two wire connector that has a white wire in it and an orange wire in it. By unplugging this connector you are left with a two wire male plug and a 2 wire female plug. In the "kit" you have a part that has the mating 2 wire female plug connected to the 2 wire male plug with a third single wire connector on a plug. This part of the kit has the one end plugging into one end of the unplugged connector in the car and then the other end plugging into the other unplugged end thus reconnecting the circuit as it was before.

NOW, this stragler single wire connector attached to the orange wire then plugs into an extension wire in the kit that has a single terminal on it and the wire color is orange. At the other end of this extension cable is yet another single wire terminal that plugs into the pigtail wire off of the mercury switch activated light socket assembly.

What is not shown in the kit is the mounting screw for the light and the bracket off of the light socket needs to be grounded through the mounting screw.

So now how does this all work one might ask is in the two wire plug is an orange wire and this is a source of a fused constant 12V. You then have 12V off of the single wire off of the dual 2 pin plugs that this power eventually gets to the light socket. Since the light has a mercury switch inside and the light socket has to be grounded is in certain positions the mercury switch closes allowing power to get to the bulb, and then allowing it to light up. If the light socket angle or position is changed the light goes off. SO, what is important here is properly setting up the light to where when the trunk lid is closed, the light is off and when open, the light comes on BUT keep in mind if you set this up with the car being level, the light may come on if you park on an incline SO you have to really pay attention to how you will be parking the car and also how the light gets adjusted to be on and off.

Now with all of that said, I have not said anything about the parking light circuit because as the kit is designed it does not work or tie into the parking lights as designed BUT there is away using some additional parts like a relay to where the trunk light will only come on providing the parking lights on the car are on.

With yet another wiring design,one could have the trunk light only come on when a front door is open and this too would require a relay. If the trunk light in the 1s t post was not a mercury switch activated single wire light but instead a standard light socket with two wires, then one could easily just tie into the orange and white wire in the trunk to where it comes on just like an interior dome light.

Personally I like the idea of having the light wired into the parking light circuit or the dome light. I go to a lot of shows and if the kit as shown was wired like it would have been originally could have the trunk light on all day while the trunk lid was open showing off the trunk compartment.

Jim
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top