So I park the Vette for the night a couple of evenings ago. As I turned to give those sexy lines one last look before I head into the house, I notice light shooting onto the ground from unerneath the car. I thought I had seen this once before but blew it off to me seeing things from exhaustion. Not this time. I got down and looked under the car, and sure enough, light coming from the enginge compartment. The underhood courtesy light is on 24/7 apparently. I am going to assume that the little plunger contact closure switch that would kill it when the hood closes is bad but I figured I would post and see if anyone had any ideas on what might cause this condition. There is a spade connector on one of the wires that runs into the light housing that I have pulled to kill the light and keep my battery from draining. Is this connector Bubba'd or does anyone else have it on their Vettes? I just keep finding little weird little things like this the longer I have this car. It is a bit like being on a scavenger hunt for the weird and unexplainable.
CVT4ME

Welcome to C3VR
As far as I know your 80 should be like my 82 and I don't think there is a plunger on it. I believe it is controlled by a mercury switch in the housing. you can purchase a cut off switch (toggle switch) from the vendors which installs in-line. This is an option to make sure your light is always off until you want it on

Thanks for the welcome! There is a plunger that I thought might be the kill switch for the light but now that I think about it, that might be for the alarm on the car. That would explain why nothing would happen when I operated the plunger by hand. There is a spade connector that I have disconnected as of now that is giving me the same effect as the switch you are referring to. I just plug it in when I need the light. Thanks for the input.

CVT4ME

Scott,
The plunger switch is for the alarm. It should have a light blue and a black wire running to it.
As Dukman says, the light operates from a mercury switch inside the bottom of the bulb housing itself. On my 80, the juice for the light comes out of a splice in the wiring loom just near the alternator. Theres a two pin connector somewhere down there against the inner wing (Sorry fender - UK/US translation!) The other pin is the earth, from the body of the housing. That should give you an idea if yours has been "modified" by some genius, as going by the wiring diagram i have, mine's pretty much the standard setup.
You could try taking the light housing off the hood, connecting the wire that goes into the centre of it to + and a clean bit of the housing to -. Then tip the whole thing over so its more or less horizontal. Naturally it should go off. If it doesn't, the switch might be buggered. If it does, then perhaps its not being tipped over enough when you close the hood - maybe bending the mounting down a bit would give it the extra few degrees it needs. I think these things have a bit of a rep for flattening batteries!
Mines been taken off by the PO to put a different hood on. It came loose with the car - I'm gonna get round to putting it back on soon. In fact you may be able to help me - how does yours attach? Is is just two self tappers into the fibreglass? I can see where its supposed to go, as there are two depressions in the new hood for drilling holes, but I'm not sure what sort of screw should be used for holding it there. Hex - head, phillips? Exactly what do you have on yours? Sounds a bit trivial, but i want to keep everything as original as possible!

Hey Theo,

Thanks for the info. you have put forth. I will check the things you listed and see what the wiring looks like. I was in the dark when I first checked this thing out, so I could not see the color code of the wiring and I have not driven the car or been under the hood since then.

I will check out the screws and let you know how mine is attached as soon as I get a chance. Hopefully that will be later today and I will post it for you tommorrow. Thanks again for the information!

CVT4ME

No worries mate,
It would be cool if you could do that, then i can add the light to my list of things to do....putting the dash back in tonight.
If you've got any more queries, tinkering with my 80 has taught me a few things in the last year or so, it would be good to swap info....

Cheers

Our info. exchange maybe a little bit one sided as I have just purchased my Vette about a month and a half ago. You are undoubtly light years further down the knowledge path than I. I will be glad to help when I can though. I guess that is the purpose of these way cool forums, so we can try and get a little smarter with our cars.

Theo, I have to know...how does one obtain an '80 Vette in the UK? I can't imagine that there are many there. I certainly don't remeber seeing any in the four years that I was in Germany. With Petro prices the way I remember them, keeping juice in that car must be spendy. I am sure petro prices are not any better than when I was there last.

Best of luck on your dash install, sounds like a scary proposition.

CVT4ME

I think the cool thing about these cars is the fact that they kind of force you to learn about them. Naturally, people who buy a car like a vette are often going to be the type to "see how it works" - or more to the point see how it doesn't work... There really is always something to do - finish one job and another crops up.
My guess is that your gonna have most fun with the electrics - they seem to be a bit of a weak link, but everythings relatively simple though.
In answer to your question, my vette was imported in 89, not by me - i was 10 then! There's a few specialist corvette places - literally a few, that i know of in the country, but i bought mine a year ago from a garage that sells american cars in general. It's quite a rare beast over here - i'd like to know how many are registered in the country. Needless to say, the week after i bought it, i was swanning around thinking i was the most individual person on the planet, and ended up seeing 3 more c3's in the space of a week, no more than 10 miles from my home. That took the wind out of my sails!
I entered it in the "C3 of the week" section on this site, if you want to see some pics, it was only a few weeks back.

Talk about petrol prices - a full tank over here would cost me over £80 - i make that 130 bucks. Never had the balls to do it!
Dashboard's back in now - I can almost do that one in my sleep now, its been in and out a few times before!

If there's anything i can help you with, drop me an email or shout me on the forum..

Cheers!

Alright Theo,

I went out last night and checked out how the underhood light was mounted. Believe it or not, mine is riveted into place. The more I look at it, the more I think that it may not be original. The wiring is red and black that goes to it. Routing for the wiring is that it goes down the hood to behind the driver side headlight assembly and then comes up the drivers side fender inside the engine bay and meets up where a bunch of other wiring. At that point I loose it and where its final destination is. The reason I don't think that it is the original light housing is that I do not see how there could be any kind of mercury switch involved with this housing. It is pretty bare, just a metal hood with a bulb in it with a flat metal mount bracket and the two wires coming out of the back. I will get my digital camera back from my folks and post a pic when I get a chance so you can see what I mean. It looks to me that you could probably use just about anything you want to mount the assembly. I would imagine anything with threads would work.

I know what you mean about the go juice, I am trying to keep gas in the Vette as well a Dodge Ram with a 360 in it. Both are total pigs with gas but the truck is worse than the Vette.

I will try to post the pic of the light assembly, hopefully by next week for you. Thanks again for all the info you have provided.

CVT4ME

You would be surprised how well hidden the mercury switch is...
If your holder's original, the bulb is about the size and type of a tail light bulb. Its held in a sheet metal cylinder about 1.5 cm diameter and 2.5 cm length, and that cylinder is half in and half out of the reflector part. The switch is inside that cylinder - it's smaller than the end of your little finger.
Still, pics will clear things up no end!