Has anyone ever had this gremlin?

[dan juhasz]

I noticed it when I did the initial startup after the entire car was put back together. Console and dome lights on all the time. Somehow it resolved itself after several minutes. I was going this morning to a car show, jumped in the 67 coronet rt and the battery was completely drained. I charged the battery and went on my way but noticed it was charging pretty high on the amp meter. This car is also equipped with a vintage air system. I did not have time to do the re learn procedure so it was acting crazy on the way to the show. Coming home I disconnected the ac system grounds and drove home. The fuel gauge and clock was dead and the console and dome lights were on constantly. Does this set of malfunctions ring a bell with anyone?
Dan

 

[R413]

You wanted to disable the AC, but why remove the grounds? It could still be hunting for a ground and cause damage to the electronics.

If you want to disable any system, disconnect the power.

The dome lamps have constant power and the ground comes from the door jamb switches or the headlight switch to light the bulbs. So it could be a bad switch, or you could have pinched a wire somwhere causing a ground when you don’t want it.

 

[dan juhasz]

You wanted to disable the AC, but why remove the grounds? It could still be hunting for a ground and cause damage to the electronics.

If you want to disable any system, disconnect the power.

The dome lamps have constant power and the ground comes from the door jamb switches or the headlight switch to light the bulbs. So it could be a bad switch, or you could have pinched a wire somwhere causing a ground when you don’t want it.

Good point, I should have pulled the power instead of the ground.

 

[khryslerkid]

Thought you were talking about one of these...

Check grounds, grounds and more grounds.

 

[snakeoil24]

Run a test lamp beteeen negative battery post and ground lead. If it’s off when everything is off is good if you have a dim bulb in test lead you have with wired something wrong or like 413 Dm said maybe stuck door switch. Pull negative then take pic of dilute block. To remember where everything goes and one at a time reinstall fuses with test lamp in circuit to find your gremlin.

 

[dvw]

The feed for those lamps is hot all the time, pink wires. There are 3 ground circuits that operate them. The two door pins switches. And a ground at the headlamp switch. The color of the ground wires is yellow. If the tab of the door switch touches the body they will stay on. If the yellow wire has a bare spot touching ground they will stay on. If the headlamp switch has a internal ground fault they will stay on.
Doug

 

[Nacho-RT74]

about the dome and courtesy lights:
do you have the right dome light bulb? dual contact single filament ? #1004. This bulb gets the base isolated from any contact. Ppl tends to install incorrectly any dual contact bulb just because you can see two contacts on socket. These bulbs are non isolated bases to the filaments since these gets the ground through the base and contacts drive two positives, while the correct #1004 handles each pole to each contact keeping filament isolated from chassis ground.

When you install the incorrect dome light bulb it tends to retro feed all the dome light, door jam circuitry, geting ground throught the chassis/socket/base and feeding the door jam ground network with ground throught the bulb filaments, hence why lights on or dim