Sunday, Oct. 10, 2021
I spent a little time in the garage with the Plymouth today. After driving the car Friday evening, I realized that the headlights seemed somewhat dim, even while driving down the highway. I haven’t checked the voltage regulator, which may need adjusting to raise the voltage.
I checked the voltage going to the headlights at the terminal strip on the radiator support (the headlight wiring comes to the terminal strip from the dimmer switch, and the to the headlights). The voltage to the headlights was barely 10 volts, while the voltage going to the parking lights was closer to 11-1/2 or more. It appears there’s some resistance in the original wiring, which isn’t surprising. The wiring on the terminal strip looks pretty corroded. I really need to remove all those terminals and clean them off.
On dim, there was no voltage coming from the dimmer switch,, which points to a wiring issue at the dimmer. Tomorrow I’ll have to move the hydraulic jack to the garage and raise the car. I really want to see what’s going on with that dimmer.
WIRING WIRING … The underhood wiring has been patched up in a couple of places, but in general, its old and in not-so-great shape. The wining harness (I used that word loosely!) has been taped up with electrical tape as it comes up from inside the car. There are factory clamps to keep it in place. If I can find a convenient place to start, I would love to rewire the front of the car under the hood.
HEADLIGHT HARNESS. I bought an aftermarket headlight wiring harness that allows you to run higher power headlights and power them directly from the battery. Otherwise, on these old cars, the voltage to the headlights makes a long trip from the battery, to the headlight switch, to the dimmer switch, then back to the terminal strip under the hood where it branches off to each headlight. With the addition of the harness,, the original headlight circuit triggers the harness, providing full juice to the headlights. I want to put a set of halogens in the car eventually. These original sealed beams are just dim as heck.
HEADLIGHT DOORS. The headlight doors on the Plymouth are held in place with three long screws — two on each lower side and one at top, above the headlight. The problem I have is that the screws go into old nylon inserts that snap into the sheet metal around the headlight bucket. I’m missing one on each side, the screw threads hold on the side of the hole, but aren’t really locked in place. I have order some GM inserts that I should be able to trim down to fit the square hold.
HEADLIGHT BUCKETS. I’m still not sure the headlight adjustments are where they need to be. I’ll have to dig deeper to figure out what I need to do for them to adjust fully.
MORE PARTS COMING. I ordered some new red warning light lenses for the Plymouth dash — oil pressure and ammeter lights. The existing lenses are washed out, there’s barely a hit of red left. I’m going to see what I can do to improve the brightness of the dash lights. I may just need to see what the generator is doing as far as output and adjust the regulator. While the headlights are dim, the starter turns over quickly, so plenty of juice there.
WHISKEY CITY GATHERING. Tomorrow (Monday), a group of Cruisers get together at Burger King from 5 to about 6:30 p.m. I’m going to go and hang out with them to see what’s going on.
I had planned to see if they were interested in turning the next cruise into a trunk or treat event, with the Nelson County Gazette donating the candy. I might ask about past trunk or treats, but I get the feeling these guys aren’t much interested in doing that. We’ll see. I’ll play it by ear.