Dome Light Switches for the Doors for '60-'66 Chevy/GMC Pickups

 

The '60-'66 Chevy/GMC trucks never had the option of having the dome light come on when you open the door. Here's one way to accomplish the task with relative ease.

 



First, go to your local parts house and buy a couple of switches. GM made a couple of different ones: a long one and a short one. You'll need the long on. I asked for switches to a fit a '78 Cadillac and got the right ones. I bought this one at Auto Zone, Wells Part Number SW98. About $2 each



Remove the filler panels in front of the doors (the ones the radio antenna would mount to) so you can see what's going on. Drill a hole on each door post (passenger's side shown) through both sides of the post. Tap the hole on the door side with an 1/8" pipe tap.



Before you install the switch, thread your wire through the hole and crimp the appropriate connector in place. Plug it into the switch and install the switch. To get the wire into the cab, drill a small hole right in the seam of the sheet metal as shown in the photo. This puts the wire in a good spot inside the cab. I dabbed a little blue silicon sealer around the wires to seal the weather out and protect the wire a little.



Here's what the switch looks like installed with the door closed. The filler panel is removed, of course.

 

Wiring is really simple. The '64-'66 dome light uses one white and one orange wire (not sure about the colors on the '60-'63s). The orange is hot (+12v) and the white goes to the headlight switch which grounds the white to make the light come on. All I did was splice the wires from both door switches into the white wire coming from the dome light.

 

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