Adding a glove box light.

[rjlester]

I would like to add a glovebox light to my 54 Meteor. This is the Canadian car that is a Ford on the outside, but has the Mercury dash. Is there a wire somewhere that is dedicated to the glovebox light, or should I just tap into where the fuses are beside the radio?

Incidentally, I pulled this glove box light out of a 61 Monarch parts car I have, it fits perfectly into the hole on my 54. Just have to put in a six volt bulb.

I also pulled the trunk light out and want to install it in my 54, haven't investigated that yet.

 

[Daves55Sedan]

On my '55 Ford Fairlane, I made a metal bracket for a micro momentary contact pushbutton switch and mounted the bracket on the existing corner glove box mounting hole. The bracket has a hole the size of the switch in it. When the glove box door is closed, it pushes the switch button inward and turns off the light.
The light socket itself is mounted on a hole I made especially for the socket and has washers on it to reinforce the cardboard glove-box. I installed a new wire directly from the battery terminal of the ignition switch to the light socket. So the light will operate even iff the ignition key is off when you open the glove-box door. It is necessary to run a ground wire from the light socket to one of the mounting nuts on the back of the clock.

 

[Daves55Sedan]

For the trunk light on my '55 Fairlane, I installed a mini-headlight style engine compartment light that i got from Western Auto store in the early 1970's. It has a mercury switch inside it. I positioned the light assembly inside the trunk lid so it would turn off the light when the trunk lid was nearly closed, them mounted it in that location. I didn't trust the mercury switch, so I also installed a small toggle switch under the dash to manually turn the light on and off. I used a fish wire to pull the insulated wire thru the inside of the trunk lid structure and out of a factory weep hole near the front of the lid at the bottom. I cut a piece of rubber hose and cut a slit in it and forced it around the wire and shoved into that hole in the truck lid so that the insulation of the wire could not be worn by that weep hole. I ran the wire under the floorcovering back to the battery terminal of the ignition switch so that the trunk light world operate even when the key is off (as long as I turned the switch on under the dash). The trunk lid itself provides the grounding for the light socket.