Cadillac Owners Forum banner

1965 Deville hardtop lighting issues

1K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  bjorn1230 
#1 ·
Hello Im a noobie to this forum.....that being said I live on the central coast of california and just bought a 65 deville...I am going through the car and working out the bugs with everything. I could use some advice on some lighting issues. Anyone out there had the same probs that im having, any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have one dim light on the passenger side. I also have a generator light on the dash that stays on. If anyone can guide me in the right direction as to where to start with these issues I would really appreciate it.
 
#2 ·
Re: 1965 cadillac deville hardtop lighting issues

A dim light can often be a bad ground wire. Check all the ground leads on the headlights
and clean them up.
Alternator or regulator could be the source of your GEN light situation. Get a cheap
Volt/Ohm meter and make some observations of voltage at the battery and regulator (if it's external).

Check for corroded battery terminals, too.
 
#3 ·
Re: 1965 cadillac deville hardtop lighting issues

Yes, if you can tell us what your voltage is reading at the battery when its running. You could also take a picture of the alternator
and give us an idea if its factory or not. If its factory it should be an older external regulator type. I recently converted mine to a later
internal regulated model as mine was putting out very crappy low voltage and the later 70s up ones are a good upgrade regardless.
One thing that can cause the gen light to stay on is if johny hackjob was lazy and did a one wire alternator setup which bypasses the
indicator light. Your typical alternator uses the indicator lamp circuit as part of its operation. If you do the one wire hack, the indicator
stays on all the time. That was exactly the case in my car when I got it.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top