Last Saturday was a beautiful Tennessee day and I went tooling over to a pal's house, t-tops out, wind on my bare skull and great g-forces over the TN twisties.

After a coupla hours I went to fire up the old '78 Silver Fox, the battery was dead. When I jumped it off I noticed the interior lights were stuck on. They never have come on from the door switches but worked thru the headlight twist panel dimmer switch.

I haven't taken the time to dig into it yet, but I did install a battery cut-off switch. Anyone have any similar problems or ideas where to start digging???? I guess the first step is to dig out my electrical manual, but laziness sends me here first....

Dave

The interior lights won't go off at all? Quite often that problem is caused by the courtesy lights delay module. On later 78s it's behind and along side the glove box. Pull the box out and look for an orange thing just hanging to the right of the opening. Earlier 78s I believe it's in the harness near the fuse box. Some of the vendors may now be selling them, I found one on ebay. There's a way to bypass it but I'm not sure of how, I'd have to look it up if you want.

I had a simlar problem with my 78 not too long ago. Interior lights worked for passenger door but not driver door. I unscrewed door jamb switch button and unpluged it from connector. Gotta hold onto plastic plug with needle nose pliers so not to lose it inside jamb. Connection pins needed a little cleaning with sandpaper and a drop of WD40. Test time and it worked fine, so I screw the switch back in, close the door and now the lights don't turn off after the delay timer. Finally figured out that I had to back the switch out a little bit, the door wasn't pushing the switch pin in enough to turn the lights off.
Maybe it's in a door switch that just needs cleaning and or adjustment if power still goes to them.
I was so so proud, I had just solved my first electrical problem.

I had the same problem with my '78...sometimes the lights would go off normally, sometimes not, and sometimes they come on on at random...it was the delay timer. It's available through some of the Vette suppliers.

My car was an early '78. It was located near the fuse box. Late ones are behind the glove box. Once you find its location, it's an easy fix...just unsnap the wiring connector and re-snap it into the new timer.

Yeah.... but.... I have a brand new (in March) delay timer on the thing... but that may be the source, the lights never did work B4 I installed the thing, but they still only work from the dimmer switch, never have, in recent history, worked from the door switches....

Dave

I had a similar problem on a '77 a few years back. Would drain a new batt. in a few hours. It was several days before I ever even noticed the interior lights were on! The only bulb that actually came on was one under the dash, so it wasn't like you could see it in the daylight. Once I replaced all of the courtesy lights, that's when I found they were staying on. That one turned out to be the door pin-switches. Neither one would even come close to touching the door with it closed. Had to do some "Southern Engineering" on them to get it working properly.
You may have one of the wires to the pin-switches that finally just fell off, and is now touching the metal part of the hinge pillar, or something similar.
I know this is gonna sound silly, but, it has to be axed...is the headlight switch knob turned to "off"?

Joel..... C'mon man.... Yeah it's turned to "OFF", but the lights get somewhat brighter when turned "ON" from the switch, which means they are getting a semi-weak ground from somewhere. I guess I'm going to have to go digging and tracing... but will look at the suggestions first.... When I was trying to get the pin switches working a coupla months ago the wires wouldn't turn them on even when deliberately grounded.

Dave