Go Back   The Ford Barn > General Discussion > Late V8 (1954+)

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 03-02-2022, 08:36 PM   #1
Lamar Wadsworth
Senior Member
 
Lamar Wadsworth's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 312
Default '55 Ford dome light wiring

Does the dome light have a constant hot with the switch on the ground like GM cars, or does the hot wire go through the door jamb switch?
Lamar Wadsworth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-02-2022, 08:53 PM   #2
paul2748
Senior Member
 
paul2748's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Midland Park, NJ
Posts: 3,965
Default Re: '55 Ford dome light wiring

My 54 has a constant hot and when the door is opened the butto pops out making a circuit and the lights go on. It's a Victoria with the interior light on the back pillars, don't know if different from a sedan with the light on the roof.
__________________
48 Ford Conv
56 Tbird
54 Ford Victoria
paul2748 is offline   Reply With Quote
Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)
Old 03-02-2022, 09:10 PM   #3
Lamar Wadsworth
Senior Member
 
Lamar Wadsworth's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 312
Default Re: '55 Ford dome light wiring

I think my '55 (Fairlane Town Sedan 4 door) is likely to be the same, unlikely that Ford would have wired the Victoria differently. Getting ready to put a new wiring harness in mine. Parents bought the car new, dome light probably hasn't worked since the early '60s.
Lamar Wadsworth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2022, 12:28 AM   #4
Daves55Sedan
Senior Member
 
Daves55Sedan's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Granite City, Illinois
Posts: 3,008
Default Re: '55 Ford dome light wiring

On '55 Ford sedans, wagons and hardtops (Fairlane and Customline series) the front doors each have a courtesy light switch at the front of the door-jamb.
The power wire comes from a separate terminal on the headlight switch and lands on the courtesy switch. Another wire comes out of the courtesy switch to the dome light.
The courtesy switch contacts are open when the car door is closed and the contacts close (completing the circuit) when the car door is opened.
When I rewired my cars, I ran an extra green ground wire and terminated it at one of the mounting screws for the chrome-plated pot metal dome light housing to insure good grounding integrity.
P.S., most of the Mainline series cars did not have factory installed courtesy lights or switches.
Daves55Sedan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2022, 08:52 AM   #5
Lamar Wadsworth
Senior Member
 
Lamar Wadsworth's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 312
Default Re: '55 Ford dome light wiring

@Daves55Sedan--that's a beautiful '55. I like that two tone. I've seen some with the dark blue on bottom and lighter blue on upper body, don't think I've seen one with the lighter blue on bottom. What's the third character of the serial number indicating the assembly plant? My father worked at the Atlanta plant 1952-82.
Lamar Wadsworth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2022, 01:34 PM   #6
down-the-road
Member
 
down-the-road's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Cranberry Township, PA
Posts: 67
Default Re: '55 Ford dome light wiring

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)


1955 Dome Light Wiring
down-the-road is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2022, 01:45 PM   #7
down-the-road
Member
 
down-the-road's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Cranberry Township, PA
Posts: 67
Default Re: '55 Ford dome light wiring



Enlarged view showing schematic portion of dome light diagram for 1955
down-the-road is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2022, 05:38 PM   #8
Daves55Sedan
Senior Member
 
Daves55Sedan's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Granite City, Illinois
Posts: 3,008
Default Re: '55 Ford dome light wiring

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamar Wadsworth View Post
@Daves55Sedan--that's a beautiful '55. I like that two tone. I've seen some with the dark blue on bottom and lighter blue on upper body, don't think I've seen one with the lighter blue on bottom. What's the third character of the serial number indicating the assembly plant? My father worked at the Atlanta plant 1952-82.
If you are asking which plant my car came from, I'm pretty sure it was the Norfolk plant, but it was sold new from a dealer in southern Texas.
I'm not sure it makes a difference as far as the two tone paint scheme. I have long pondered why some body plants painted their car body's using Fomoco's "Styletone" paint scheme and some plants were ordered to go with the "unique two-tone" scheme in 1955.
In the midwest, I saw several of both types running around in the '60's & early '70s, but that doesn't mean they didn't come from several distant plants originally.
There's probably no one left on earth that could tell you which plants were ordered to use which scheme (or both at different times of the year).
BTW, the unique two-tone style didn't necessarily always mean that the light color was on the bottom of the car. Sometimes the dark color was. You'd need to see original '55 Ford sales brochures to see what I mean.
Main difference between styletone and unique two tone is that the styletone has the exterior bottom and top of the car as the base color of the car (firewall, undercarriage, inside of doors, trunk, hood). Then the second color woulkd be applied to the middle.
The unique two tone cars had the middle of the car as the base color including (firewall, undercarriage, inside of doors, trunk, hood and exterior top), while the bottom and window frames were a different color. Unique two tone paint schemes were only applied to Fairlane models.

Last edited by Daves55Sedan; 03-03-2022 at 05:47 PM.
Daves55Sedan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2022, 09:45 PM   #9
Jwawhite
Senior Member
 
Jwawhite's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Now on the Land of Sun City West, AZ
Posts: 405
Default Re: '55 Ford dome light wiring

I bought the wiring diagram...it's a head scratcher how the three, dome light two switches are wired...but I'm gonna do it someday. Will take a photo of the diagram soon and submit.
Jwawhite is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-06-2022, 07:54 AM   #10
bobss396
Senior Member
 
bobss396's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 721
Default Re: '55 Ford dome light wiring

The OG ones have one hot wire, the socket body is the ground. The harness I used is a 2-wire design. It took a little while to figure it out. I bought a new 2-wire socket, reused the bracket off the old one, JB welded it to the new socket body.
bobss396 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:15 PM.