The night the lights came on in Georgia ...

    Since I was already messing with the gas tank, which got me thinking about he fuel gage and in turn lead me to the dash gage cluster ..... I decided to see why there were no lights working and if I could get the fuel gage working. I determined that there are 5 lights on the dash. 2 to light up the gages, 1 was an indicator on the gage panel and the other two were the glove box light and clock light.

    I determined that all of the old cloth covered wiring had been cut and nothing was reconnected. The reason this was done is because the system in 1950 was a 6 volt system. With the newer engine it was now running a 12 volt battery. All of the bulbs ... 6 volts. Rather than reduce power to 6 volts I just changed all of the bulbs to 12 volt bulbs and wired it all in.

    Again, let me backtrack. Not only was the 6 volt battery replaced with a 12 volt battery, the wiring harness was also removed for the most part and a Kwik wire kit was installed.

    The cool thing about this kit is all of the wires are marked as to what they go to! So I just find dash lights and hook that wire to the bulbs! Sounds easy right? Not so fast ... there is a connection block mounted under the dash that the original wires went to first. This 4 terminal block held the dome, tail lights, gas gage wire, stop and instruments. This block is mounted on the dash lip just below the gage cluster behind or under the dash. Fortunately there is an access panel under the hood on the firewall to allow easy access to the back of the gages and this terminal block. The reason for this, I assume, was so you could easily remove the gage cluster by just disconnecting at the terminal block.

    I first tied all of the gage cluster lights together and from there went to the instrument position on the terminal block. From there I went to the wire marked instruments or dash lights in the Kwik wire kit I also connected the clock and glove box lights to the same.



    I later learned that one of the bulbs in the cluster was an indicator light. I read somewhere about an ignition lock light and assumed this is what that was for. The ignition switch has since been changed out from an on off type switch to the more modern switch most people are familiar with and this indicator light (if that is what it is for) would not be needed at this time. So I disconnected that and used it for something else which I will talk about later.

    To elaborate on the switch ... In the 50's Chevrolet used an on off switch for the ignition. I believe it was a three position switch. Lock, on and off. you would leave it in the locked position when the car was parked and you wanted it secure. From the lock position you could then turn the switch to unlock it and remove the key if desired. The switch was shaped in a way that you could turn it even without the key. Once on you would push a separate button on the dash or floor to actually start the car. When you were ready to turn off the engine you would use the third position (off) and could restart without a key as long as you did not return to the locked position.

    The glove box light is activated by a push button that, when the door is closed, turned off the light. When you open the door to the glove box it would let the switch out allowing the light to come on. My "button" was broken or wore down so that the door would not push it in enough to turn off the light. As a temporary fix , I put a little round magnet on the door so the switch would hit that and turn off the light.

    That left the clock light, this light also doubles as an ashtray light and other than change the bulb to 12 volts I had nothing else to do other than connect it up with the rest of the instrument lights.

     Notice the bit of light to the left and below the clock. This is an aftermarket engine temperature gage that was connected to the engine but the light wires were not connected. This newer gage is actually dinner than the rest of the lights! I am not sure I can read it going down the rod but we will see. The goal would be to have the reading work in the original spot or gage!


    The dome light was not installed when the headliner was done. I was not given the fixture and may get this going sometime in the future.Since I brought up head liner ... there were two clothes hanger hooks in the glove box that also were not reinstalled when the liner went in. I think once I get the location of these I may be able to feel around and find the original mounting holes and install them without having to take down to liner to locate the holes.

    I'm not sure if this is the correct order but since I am on lights and do not have a bunch of suporting pictures for it I will mention this here. The head lights ....

    I tried out the high/low for the head lights and only low was working. A quick look under the car and all three wires were connected to the dimmer switch. I assumed the switch was bad and picked up another. This had to be ordered for next day pick up so I went back home and took the old one off to prepare for the new. After some research and a good cleaning I discovered the wires for the lights were not connected to the correct terminals. They had the high beam wire connecter to the power terminal and the power wire connected to the high beam terminal. I reinstalled the switch with the wires in their proper place and it worked like a charm! (Note: the headlights had already been changed to 12 volts so I did not have to purchase new bulbs)

    Back to the indicator light on the gage cluster .... You can see this light in the first picture above showing red. I ran the high beam light wire to that and from there to the dimmer switch so that when I turned on the high beams it would light up to let me know they are on. Maybe this is what this light is for all along. I won't know until I research a bit more.

    BTW I did pick up the new dimmer as a backup. It was cheap so why not. I suspect the American made switch will last many more years to come though.

    As a side note ... the oil pressure is the only thing on the gage cluster that was working. When I turn on the switch it goes over to 30. This may not be accurate, but if I lose oil pressure it should go to 0 therefore letting me know here is a problem.

    As for the temperature gage.. I do not think I will have that working any time soon as it takes a small copper tube to the original gage and that has be cut off.

    I think I can get the amp gage working by running the fuel gage hot wire to the amp gage then to the fuel gage. This (gas gage) will be the only gage I will reduce from 12 volts to 6 so it should work nicely for the amp gage. The amp gage may work off of 12 volts but I don't want to take the chance of burning it up. I will get into the gas gage on the next blog post.