Been a good bit since I’ve updated here, mostly because I really ain’t done much to my K20 since the spring other than drive it. That is until this week. I’ve been off from work burning the last of my vacation time for about a week and half. My dad was bugging me for Christmas ideas earlier this month and I couldn’t think of much. I remembered the blazer courtesy lights I was going to order and never got around to it. So I sent those over and he had them shipped to me.
The factory door switches and cargo light have never worked since I’ve owned it, it’s always been one of those I’ll get to it one of these days type of thing. Back around July I briefly started messing with the cargo light. At some point some one put an 1157 dual filament bulb in the cargo light socket. I pulled it out and really didn’t think much about it. Put a new one I had laying around in and obviously it didn’t work. I was having trouble getting consistent power to the socket in conjunction with the wrong bulb and not much time that day, I temporarily gave up. I had assumed that maybe the cargo light required the door switches to be functional to work properly, at that point I had not reviewed that part of the factory wiring diagrams.
So fast forward to this week. I installed the painless blazer courtesy kit as outlined in this thread.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=829247
The courtesy lights installed and work flawlessly. They are truly 100% plug and play with the factory dome light harness in the correct wire colors, as long as you have functioning factory door switches. The only issue I had was the door switches sent in the painless kit don’t fit the factory holes, they are too small. I rounded up some new switches from Napa and wired it all up good as new.
Now to the dome light. I did some research and found that obviously the 1157 is the wrong bulb. Got the right bulb put in but still no power at all this time. Next I started probing with the multi meter. Power to the switch, no power out in either position. Took the switch apart and cleaned the contacts with fine emery paper…got power to the light socket. Put it all back together with the cargo light working.
2 out of 3 of my minor electrical issues solved.
The other issue I’ve always had was no lights in the ac/heater controls. Since I was already tooled and geared up for electrical stuff I went ahead and tackled this one.
Tore the console out, had power to the grey cluster light wires but not the hvac light sockets. Cleaned both socket contacts up with the aforementioned emery cloth. The bulb closest to the ignition switch came to life. Still No dice on the cigarette lighter side. I assume that there is a factory splice in the grey wire between the cluster connector and the ignition switch side hvac light. I pulled the fuse box from the firewall, traced the cluster supply wires all the way to its source. There’s no other place that second light can get power. It has to be a factory splice like I said between the cluster plug and the ignition switch hvac light. I wasn’t about to pull the harness and in tape it to find the factory splice and inspect. I made a new splice and everything works perfect now.
Its pretty nice having the dome light, floor courtesy lights, cargo light work off of the doers like they are supposed to. Also pretty nice seeing the hvac controls at night.
I think I’m gonna focus on pulling the windshield, replacing the rubber, addressing any hidden secrets behind the rubber and putting it back together along with the dreaded re seal of the drip rails. I’ve got some leaks inside that these things should remedy.
I highly recommend the blazer courtesy lights. They are really a nice upgrade.
Here’s a few pictures. Note the black switch with corroded brass contacts (I lightly scuffed the center to show the amount of corrosion) that’s the cargo light switch.