Good job. I couldnt for the life of me think what they would use that for but it makes sense to keep you from having to disassemble the whole door to change a bulb.
Well, this wagon is making me look foolish. Last weekend I pulled the passenger door panel to replace the window run channel and to lube/adjust the window regulator, plus the latch and lock linkages. The glass was rattling when open and whistling when closed, and everything else was moving slow and stiff.
Good job. I couldnt for the life of me think what they would use that for but it makes sense to keep you from having to disassemble the whole door to change a bulb.
I swear this car is bound and determined to make a fool out of me. Lol I removed the door panels this past weekend to replace the window run channels and lube/adjust the window regulator and lock/latch linkages. Inside both doors I found fiber optic cables and discovered that the car has pull up door handles with lenses for the fiber optic light to shine onto a polished reflective surface under the pull up handle directing the light to the exterior lock cylinder. Both front door handles have a switch to provide a momentary ground that engages the courtesy light delayed entry timer/module. The fiber optic and ground wires had been pulled off of their connections (presumably by a bad slim Jim job). I’ve never seen pull up door handles with lenses to direct light to a lock cylinder before. It isn’t a lighted ring around the key hole like I remember on the Cadillacs, the light shines down from the bottom of the handle on to a normal lock cylinder. I’ve seen button handle lights shine down on locks but never the pull-up types. I didn’t even know such a system existed, and I still can’t find a reference anywhere that lighted entry delay/lighted locks was available as an option on any B body wagon of the era. All references strictly point at C body applications, but apparently it was available on B body wagons (at least). I’m confident it’s factory installed because the relay/module was/is mounted above the steering column, under the speedometer, behind the meter cluster mount assembly. A place where mere mortals would not venture for anything other than the most critical of reasons, and certainly not to add a module that could easily be mounted in a million more convenient/appropriate places. I know it’s too late to make a long story short, but much like that 403 equipped Holiday 88 sans air conditioning, with the alternator on the wrong side of the engine, these 40 year old B body’s are still teaching ‘new to me’ things lol. Anyway, after cleaning/reconnecting the fiber optics/grounds, and cleaning and refitting the connections at the delay module (I didn’t want to remove the plastic dash carrier for fear of it breaking into even more pieces than it is already-it would look like a jigsaw puzzle with several cups of plastic dust if it is disturbed any more than it has been-I swear I’d rather try to unroll the Dead Sea scrolls than get that carrier out in less than a thousand pieces, so I went from underneath, easily the most difficult contortion extensive thing I’ve ever done under a B body dash), and I now have functional lighted entry delay/lighted lock cylinder system.
The module is now mounted much closer to the fuse box and I’m more than a little bit amazed that a system that I didn’t know existed a week ago, is in good working order now. I refuse to call the Custom Cruiser a C-body, mainly because I don’t want to be disqualified from this forum. Lol The rear door run channels are next weekend and all four door seal weatherstripping is after that. If I live long enough, It probably won’t take me more than several more years to make this thing as good as it was in the mid 1980s lol
