Ok, my truck is in the body shop getting painted. They are replacing my beat to death hood. The shop owner found a good used hood and it has an option I have never seen. It has a work light with a retractable cord attached to the bottom. It has a wiring harness and we actually found the connector on my truck it plugs into. So it must be a factory option.

Does anybody have one of these? How rare of an option is it? Does it look complete, is it missing anything? I intend to hook it up and use it.

 

Underhood Retractable light is a factory option.

Here's mine...



It came with the courtesy light group, and/or the underhood toolbox options.

Pic of underhood toolbox



It wasn't a really rare option, but finding one in good shape today is rare.

 

Where did he find it? I'm in Acworth, and I would go junkyarding
to find one. There are none up here, I've already checked. I've already got the box, now I need the light.

 

My old man's 84 came with it, and my 86 has it as well. Handy little bugger sometimes, but the retractor doesn't always want to work. Chevy had them on the 90's trucks with a hand crank rewind.

 

I literally grab these up when I come across them and have several lying around. A lot of times the mercury switch inside goes bad. It is replaceable and at one time, there was a company giving out new ones for free when you sent the old mercury filled ones in. These can be taken apart (removing the rivots). I then usually use small bolts/nuts to close them back up. Some of them need rewound so the light fully retracts. The nice thing is that the light housing has a magnet on it so you can stick it anywhere on the body (great for changing a flat at night. (or finding your dropped keys . Chevy has a similar set up but it has a manual on/off switch and manual crank to retract the cord.

 

They were popular on Broncos, another place to look when in the junk yards.

 

I have one of these on my '86 - but am unsure how it is supposed to extend/retract. Do you just pull on the light bulb portion of it, and that portion is supposed to come free of the black plastic body on some kind of extension cord?

 

Yes, it has a cord attached to the back of the light that just pulls out, then you tug a little, and it is supposed to recoil.

 

The Body shop owner found it and didn't say.

I have never seen one. Now I will be looking out for the tool box.

 

I've got 5 or six working lights, some xlt/lariat bezels, bunch of other odds and ends in a box some place here lol. If I find them I will send them out for what I paid for them. For a bit more, I'll go in clean up the lights, rewind them, and re-seal it all up.

 

Where can I find the mercury switches to fix mine, and any others I might find?

 

Google lists some sources, including amazon.

It used to be you could buy those at Radio Shack but mercury has since been found to be
an environmental & health hazard (causes brain & nervous system damage) and has pretty much
been removed from the mainstream marketplace. It is now considered a hazardous waste, one
pea-sized drop can affect a fairly large (20 acres? I forget) land or water mass for years to come
without degrading.

Anyway, use Google to find where to get 'em these days.

 

Ok I will give it a shot.

 

Here is what the switches look like :



The left object is a mercury switch. The center object is a ball bearing switch with no mercury. The dime is shown for size comparison purposes.

Trying to find where to buy the ball bearing switch

 

I just fixed mine. The problem with mine was the mercury switch wasn't making contact with the electrode. I repositioned the switch and cleaned the contacts for good measure.