'55 Ford dome light wiring

Lamar Wadsworth

Lamar Wadsworth

Senior Member
Does the dome light have a constant hot with the switch on the ground like GM cars, or does the hot wire go through the door jamb switch?
 
My 54 has a constant hot and when the door is opened the butto pops out making a circuit and the lights go on. It's a Victoria with the interior light on the back pillars, don't know if different from a sedan with the light on the roof.
 
I think my '55 (Fairlane Town Sedan 4 door) is likely to be the same, unlikely that Ford would have wired the Victoria differently. Getting ready to put a new wiring harness in mine. Parents bought the car new, dome light probably hasn't worked since the early '60s.
 
On '55 Ford sedans, wagons and hardtops (Fairlane and Customline series) the front doors each have a courtesy light switch at the front of the door-jamb.
The power wire comes from a separate terminal on the headlight switch and lands on the courtesy switch. Another wire comes out of the courtesy switch to the dome light.
The courtesy switch contacts are open when the car door is closed and the contacts close (completing the circuit) when the car door is opened.
When I rewired my cars, I ran an extra green ground wire and terminated it at one of the mounting screws for the chrome-plated pot metal dome light housing to insure good grounding integrity.
P.S., most of the Mainline series cars did not have factory installed courtesy lights or switches.
 
@Daves55Sedan--that's a beautiful '55. I like that two tone. I've seen some with the dark blue on bottom and lighter blue on upper body, don't think I've seen one with the lighter blue on bottom. What's the third character of the serial number indicating the assembly plant? My father worked at the Atlanta plant 1952-82.
 
485363


1955 Dome Light Wiring
 
Lamar Wadsworth said:
@Daves55Sedan--that's a beautiful '55. I like that two tone. I've seen some with the dark blue on bottom and lighter blue on upper body, don't think I've seen one with the lighter blue on bottom. What's the third character of the serial number indicating the assembly plant? My father worked at the Atlanta plant 1952-82.
Click to expand...
If you are asking which plant my car came from, I'm pretty sure it was the Norfolk plant, but it was sold new from a dealer in southern Texas.
I'm not sure it makes a difference as far as the two tone paint scheme. I have long pondered why some body plants painted their car body's using Fomoco's "Styletone" paint scheme and some plants were ordered to go with the "unique two-tone" scheme in 1955.
In the midwest, I saw several of both types running around in the '60's & early '70s, but that doesn't mean they didn't come from several distant plants originally.
There's probably no one left on earth that could tell you which plants were ordered to use which scheme (or both at different times of the year).
BTW, the unique two-tone style didn't necessarily always mean that the light color was on the bottom of the car. Sometimes the dark color was. You'd need to see original '55 Ford sales brochures to see what I mean.
Main difference between styletone and unique two tone is that the styletone has the exterior bottom and top of the car as the base color of the car (firewall, undercarriage, inside of doors, trunk, hood). Then the second color woulkd be applied to the middle.
The unique two tone cars had the middle of the car as the base color including (firewall, undercarriage, inside of doors, trunk, hood and exterior top), while the bottom and window frames were a different color. Unique two tone paint schemes were only applied to Fairlane models.
 
Last edited:
I bought the wiring diagram...it's a head scratcher how the three, dome light two switches are wired...but I'm gonna do it someday. Will take a photo of the diagram soon and submit.
 
The OG ones have one hot wire, the socket body is the ground. The harness I used is a 2-wire design. It took a little while to figure it out. I bought a new 2-wire socket, reused the bracket off the old one, JB welded it to the new socket body.
 
I will drop the dome light tomorrow but my “fear” is they only sent one wire to the dash instead of two…
If so how does one get a wire under the headliner over to the A Pillar?.
 
Use some kind a snake (plumbers?) to go from the light to the a pillar. The problem with running a new wire is that it will have to rest on the headliner. Old may have been attached to one of the ribs.



Jwawhite said:
I will drop the dome light tomorrow but my “fear” is they only sent one wire to the dash instead of two…
If so how does one get a wire under the headliner over to the A Pillar?.
Click to expand...
 
Lo and Behold, the person did run 2 wires from the Dome Light!
The second pre switch wire was never hooked up to the solo connection at the switch and the wire was hidden in the headliner.
I fished out the wire at the A Pillar and saw two wrapped in electrical tape even though I saw only one at the switch.
 
Did the 2nd wire appear as part of the original harness?

Does the 2nd wire show on your schematic?
 
One of the two wires to the dome light would be for power sent to the bulb from the door jamb switches.
The other could be constant power if the dome light fixture has a manual switch on the side for 'as needed' illumination without opening a door.

Example similar wiring diagram attached...
 

Attachments

  • dash map courtesy light wiring diagram c2.jpg
    dash map courtesy light wiring diagram c2.jpg
    49.4 KB · Views: 16
Last edited:
Does the 55 dome lamp have a separate overhead lamp switch on the lamp itself or is the lamp turned on at the HDL SW?

What is the schematic for?
 
Lamar Wadsworth said:
@Daves55Sedan--that's a beautiful '55. I like that two tone. I've seen some with the dark blue on bottom and lighter blue on upper body, don't think I've seen one with the lighter blue on bottom. What's the third character of the serial number indicating the assembly plant? My father worked at the Atlanta plant 1952-82.
Click to expand...

I've seen you ask this simple question a few times on Facebook, and now on the Ford Barn. Not sure why nobody wants to answer this simple question to help you out.
Confusing to me.

Sal
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top