TheSamba.com :: View topic - Interior lights will not turn off when doors are closed.

Wed Oct 21, 2009 9:57 pm

Helping a friend out with their interior lights on their Vanagon. My interior lights work fine. I know there are 3 positions: Off, On, and on when a door is open.

Friend's interior lights only on and off, but opening a closing doors does not change status. Tried all 3 positions.

Anyone have experience with this?

Thu Oct 22, 2009 5:48 am

Check the switches that are in the door hinge area. The ones that get closed when the door is closed. Maybe one of them is somehow stuck in the 'open' position thus making the system think that the door is always open.

Thu Oct 22, 2009 7:40 am

The switch in the interior light can break pretty easy, and they are pretty cheap.
http://www.busdepot.com/details.jsp?partnumber=823947105B
this was the problem with my 81.
I bought a couple of em.

Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:46 am

Neither door makes the light work? If so...

Like MA says, the switch is likely toast. On mine the switch mechanism was broken. The PO bent the ground connections in toward the switch contacts to compensate. Kinda worked but hinky.

btw, if the switches are removed from door posts, can't hurt to clean the little pointy tab and hole it goes into. (contacts) I did this and put dielectric grease on. The grease should prevent corrosion and there's enough pressure on contacts to, uh, make contact in spite of grease. The passenger door switch was stuck. The grease also helped this.

Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:08 pm

It's definitely not the light assemblies, because the symptoms are the same on all three interior lights.

It could be the door switch though. I will definitely look at those and update all when I find the answer.

Thank you.

Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:11 pm

For the back hatch, there is a plate riveted onto the door that compresses the switch. If this is bent or broken you will have problems. Caused mine to flash on and off when I was driving. Probably not your issue but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:30 pm

Steelhead wrote: For the back hatch, there is a plate riveted onto the door that compresses the switch. If this is bent or broken you will have problems. Caused mine to flash on and off when I was driving. Probably not your issue but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Huh? My van doesn't have this switch. Only on the front two doors. What are you driving? Is this on a 7 pass. van?

Just a thought....The switches in the front doors are on the grounding wire side of the circuit and not the hot wire. Do they share the same grounding point? If they do maybe check that?

Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:04 pm

Sorry, forgot to list the vehicle info for my friends car.

He drives a 1990 Vanagon GL 7 Passenger AT.

Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:23 pm

Rhinoculips wrote: Steelhead wrote: For the back hatch, there is a plate riveted onto the door that compresses the switch. If this is bent or broken you will have problems. Caused mine to flash on and off when I was driving. Probably not your issue but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Huh? My van doesn't have this switch. Only on the front two doors. What are you driving? Is this on a 7 pass. van?

Mine's an '89 carat/whitestar/wolfsburg. I guess the slider and back hatch light switches weren't the norm. There's a few little electrical extras to go haywire in the these models.

Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:25 pm

Steelhead- my '86, 90 and '91 hardtops are that way.

Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:32 pm

I have the opposite problem, my driver's side light is on or off, but won't come on when the doors are opened. I don't think any other lights in my bus are suppose to respond to doors open/shut.

Once Bentley arrives, I'll find the driver's side light run. I imagine it goes through the door boot, and my power locks only work from one door, so may be time to tackle that rewiring job too...
KM

Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:33 pm

from what I gater all vanagons have the front two door switches, westys do not have one in the slider but the rest do, and only vanagons with the rear wiper have the switch in the hatch. this is not fact just what i have gathered from my vanagons and the ones i work on and pull parts from.