39 Headlight Dimmer Switch

Posted by jwblazek On 2018/5/6 14:34:04

Trying to track down an elusive wiring issue in my 1939 Six. When I depress the floor board dimmer switch, lights go out and car draw serious current as it pegs the ammeter and the thermal bi-metal strip on the headlight switch gets extremely hot.

Does anybody know the pinout / wiring of that 5 pole dimmer switch? Short of that, I'll pull wires one-by-one and track down this short. Schematic shows 5 wires but not what kind of switch this is

Also, the third position of the headlight switch doesn't do anything except draw a short as well. This interacts with the headlight dimmer switch
I did find a short in the left headlight socket, of which I will be ordering a pair Monday Issue with 3rd position persists with socket cut out of the car
There are 3 positions to the headlight switch:
1)Parking lights
2)city or country driving and
3) Country driving or passing lights
The dimmer switch, with headlight swicth in 2nd position, raises both beams to Country (of which only the right light does this)
With headlight switch in 3rd position, successive switching the dimmer switch is supposed to raise or lower the left headlight, of which it doesn't.
Add confusion, left light was not as bright as the right so I temporarily ran a "body feed" wire from the chassis to the headlight bezel. Got brighter but cooked the spring on the bulb contact.