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The dome light switch on the rear roof has two places for wires, one of which goes to the light bulb. Each open door button (switch) has holes for two wires. How does this work? Are the buttons wired in sequence? Does a battery wire go through the passenger door to the driver side and then to the lamp? It doesn’t make sense to me. Stumped.

 

Norm -

Wire each door switch with it's own hot lead in (and out), terminating the other end at the dome light. They are just switches that are open when the door is closed and closed when the door is open. Wiring each one independantly to the dome lets either open door turn the light on.

Wiring them in series, as you proposed, would mean that both doors would have to be open in order for the dome light to come on.

Don't ask me how I know this...

 

Randy, The wiring loop sounds right and will work, but I remembered that my 56 was not hot at the switch, ( and that is a lot hot wires to get pinched) so I dug out the notes. Mine was wired as you say, but the door switches were wired to ground the light when door is opened. I wired the 56 in the same manner with the only HOT going to the light fixture. The fixture also has an ON switch which is simply 1 more grounding switch as are the door buttons.
This allows for the dome to be used with the doors closed as the HOT would not get to the domelight until a door is opened. The hot wire is also not prone to wear and abrasion. I do not have and never have seen the factory diagrahm, so I am not sure what is true to orig, but all the aftermarket kits also use the same " hot to dome only " fashion.
PS: the domelight has 2 ground wires to it, and 1 from the dome switch to ground. Made sense to me at the time and seems safer. ??
I went to the next step and wired my HOT from the headlight switch so that I can dim the dome as well by turning the headlight switch. Hope this helps.
Jon ( formally known as " El Cabron " )

 

Norm, I put a 56 wiring diagram in my gallery, hope it helps

 

CIAF has the correct wiring method.

 

Jim

The diagram shows a hot wire from the back of the light switch splitting and going through each door botton and a third wire going on to the dome switch independently. That makes sense except the dome switch only has connections for two wires and one has to be for a hot wire to the dome light itself. Do that mean the other three wires need to go through a junction and come out as one wire?

 

Ditto. Hot to light. 1 wire from other side of light to driver door switch, then from driver door switch to ground. Another wire from same side of light to passenger door switch, then from passenger door switch to ground. If your dome light has an on off switch, wire one end of the switch to ground, the other end to the ground side of the light (if it's not pre-wired that way).

SSDW (Same Stuff Different Way) For what it's worth.

 

Sounds like you're reading the diagram backwards, or it's miss-labeled (I've had both happen to me). On the other hand, your kit may not be OEM, and therefore set up for a non-original wiring scheme. Are you going for a concours correct resto here?

 

Most door push buttons are set up to contact to ground thru the mounting hardware when the plunger is out and open when pushed in (single terminal on switch). If you ran a hot wire to the switch it would dead short when you opened the door. A simple conductivity setup or VOM will confirm if that's the way your switches work.

 

I believe back a few years that the GMs were all with grounds to the door switches, and the Fords were the opposite. That could account for some of the confusion.

 

Makes sense to me! I think I'll rewire mine that way when it all goes back together. Thanks.

BTW, the door switches I bought (from John's F-Fun Hundreds) are supposed to be OEM style and do not ground to the jamb. They have two inputs for wires in the back.

 

can anyone make a diagram of that? I can follow that easyer as I will likley be doing this sometime as well. thanks

 

Here ya go. It's really simple, but should get you there...

 

Will someone please read Jim's wiring diagram and tell me what to do? I don't have tha faintest idea what "wiring to ground " means, Only one wire comes from the main light switch and connects to everything. It has to be live, right.

 

Jim's diagram shows a hot wire coming from the headlight switch and splitting into three, with one wire going to each door switch, and one wire going to the dome light. One wire comes off the other side of each door switch and each go to the dome light. Finally one wire goes from the dome light to ground.

This may well be the original wiring scheme for the dome light, but as stated before, this is not considered to be the best wiring scheme, as it creates a lot of opportunity for short. If you're not doing a concours correct restore, I would not suggest using this wiring scheme.

On another note, do you have a pic you can post, or link us to that shows the actual dome light assembly that you're using? I'm having a hard time understanding "only one wire comes from the main light switch and connects to everything." Are you talking about the dome light switch that is on the dome light assembly, or are you talking about the wire that comes from the headlight switch?