Dome Light Repair

[Bru]

There have been several writeups on this but here was my experience. For years I've been fighting the dome lights would work then they wouldn't work. If I messed with it they would work again and few years later it stop working. This was the culprit. The metal rivets that go through the plastic for the power coming in and the rivets near the 2 side ground straps with screws were loose because maybe the plastic shrank after 30 years and air oxidation on the connections. If you wiggled the wire that have a metal end, it would move with the rivet. I took a couple drift punches and carefully tapped the 4 of them a little tighter with one punch above and one punch below that fit into the recesses. That solved the problem. I considered soldering but that would melt the plastic. The original tool used to do this was some kind of a tiny cup shaped die like a grommet tool which I don't have. I used small drift punches and tapped them about flat. After that it was more difficult to wiggle the wires with the metal caped ends on the rivets. I didn't have to mess with any of those in the light bulb area. To get to the power rivets you have to remove the 2 small Phillips screws and gently lift up the switch assembly. The entire unit comes out of the car by unscrewing the 2 side grounds and the one forward Phillips screw. Getting off the decorative cover can be a chore. A good approach would be to take a thin blade screwdriver and try one of the corners by the switches going parallel a cross. Once you get the 1st one loose, the others come easier. The switch function is as follows: in is on, out is off. The rocker switch pressed toward the door activates the light when a door is opened.

[tmothy3]

Nice write up. I will save this thread for future reference.