interior lights stay on?

[BerniniCaCO3]

what do the switches look like? do I need to take apart the door to get to it?

[1990LTD]

no


it's the little white plunger in the front of the door jamb that your door presses down on when its closed. they're also adjustable so it's possible that one got pushed in too far and the switch wont close now. you can pull them out through the FRONT, i did them backwards and had a hell of a time wiring them from behind

the exact same thing happened to my car.


you can very gently pull the switch out with vice grips, but be careful with the switch incase it's not actually bad. like mentioned earlier, keep a hold of the wiring harness attached to it.

if it IS bad, you can just pull the switch, unplug it, and put the switch back in until you get another one...if left out the hole it's in can be a huge leak point

[BerniniCaCO3]

Ohhh, hahahaha.
white plunger in the door jamb did the trick; I didn't know what I was looking for....

Pulled the driver side one out, and, there was no wire attached! I must have knocked it loose whilst fishing all those wires through. That would indeed do it :-D
Mystery solved, I hope... pulling out just that tidbit of trim now to look behind it.

Unless the default for not being plugged in at all, is to have the lights OFF, in which case I'm still in trouble: but would an unplugged switch lead to them being stuck ON?

[87gtVIC]

No idea...but I had this problem as well. I couldnt for the life of me figure out the problem. I tore through the entire interior trying to find the problem. I ended up just re-wiring the entire circuit.

[1990LTD]

Ohhh, hahahaha.
white plunger in the door jamb did the trick; I didn't know what I was looking for....

Pulled the driver side one out, and, there was no wire attached! I must have knocked it loose whilst fishing all those wires through. That would indeed do it :-D
Mystery solved, I hope... pulling out just that tidbit of trim now to look behind it.

Unless the default for not being plugged in at all, is to have the lights OFF, in which case I'm still in trouble: but would an unplugged switch lead to them being stuck ON?

no, unplugged = lights off

[BerniniCaCO3]

Shit. I'll check the other ones, then... and in the meantime, how DO I go about fishing that wire out of the door?

Meh, I'll struggle with a coat hanger for a pull tape for half an hour, should be able to get it.

[BerniniCaCO3]

Umm.... what else? :-(
I pulled out all five, unless I'm missing one! I doubt it. Three of the five ended up having the wires fall back into the body, careful as I tried to be.
So when none of them were plugged in... STILL the lights stayed on.

More ideas?

[87gtVIC]

Have you unplugged teh head light switch to make sure that is not sending current to the wires?

[BerniniCaCO3]

alrighty, will try that next :-D

[87gtVIC]

It will be a pain to do but you gotta figure out what the hell is giving power to the lights.

[gadget73]

you did turn the center knob of the headlamp switch to make sure its not clicked right? I dont mean the outer ring where the autolamp stuff is, but the center knob which operates the dash lamp dimmer. When you turn it all the way one way, it clicks and the interior lamps stay on.

[BerniniCaCO3]

OOPS. Um, yep-- that was it. Had the center knob turned too far to the left. I'd only be turning the outer ring; didn't realize the center knob did anything (but pull out two stops for lights, and high beam).

Now, 1990LTD, any tips on how to pull those wiring harnesses back out again?

[sly]

for the front doors, I think you can get access to them by removing the kick panel. for the rear doors... if you can't get the center pillar panels off, you may have to try some string and a paperclip bent into a hook. I'm not sure you could even get at them with the center pillar panels off either since I've never actually removed them.

[1990LTD]

OOPS. Um, yep-- that was it. Had the center knob turned too far to the left. I'd only be turning the outer ring; didn't realize the center knob did anything (but pull out two stops for lights, and high beam).

Now, 1990LTD, any tips on how to pull those wiring harnesses back out again?

I hope you've got small hands. I don't, and had to get someone who didn't know cars at all to help

"See that wiring harness in there? Just grab it and push it out of there"
"Wiring harness?!"


Needle nose pliers to grab the wiring harness once you can see it through that hole