Got up at O:Dark Thirty this morning as usual.
Did my Pre-Work routine, as usual.
Gathered up my shit and headed out the door. Just like every other work day for decades.
Got in the Big Red Truck, threw my lunchbox on the seat, slammed the door because the hinge pin bushings are shot and I have been too lazy to replace them, fumbled with the seat belt, fired it up and pulled out the headlight switch to head out.
Except no headlights.
WTF?
They worked fine yesterday all the way to work.
Fumbled around pulling and pushing the switch in and out and still nothing.
Get out and see the tail lights and front parking lights are on. Got back in and tried the High Beams. The headlights came on but only as long as I held the turn signal stalk back in the high beam position. They wouldn’t stay on unless I kept it pulled back against the spring.
Fuck me.
It’s fucking dark and it will be dark long after I get to work.
So I drove all the way in holding the turn signal stalk back.
Get to work, punch in and head to our little hidey hole we call The Shop.
Basically a corner of a huge warehouse fenced in with chain link, a bunch of shelves, desks, cabinets and a sliding door.
Get in the internet, get on Youtube and look up First Generation Dodge Truck, No Headlights.
Several videos appear and I start scrolling, looking to see if there are several with the same issue.
Most common is headlight switch.
I had to wait a couple hours for my local parts store to open. I start work at 6:30 in the morning.
They look it up and don’t have one in stock but they can have it by the afternoon run.
Stop in after work just in time for them to get it out of the truck, $31 and change.
Get home, open the hood and disconnect the battery and then start tearing the instrument cluster bezel off. Fought that sonofabitch for a good twenty minutes after I got all the screws out. It had a bunch of those damn clips around the bottom and I had to pry it out over the steering column without breaking it.
The switch is basically the same as the old Ford ones that I have changed dozens of over the years.
Fiddle fucked around trying to snake it out the bottom between the hood release and the E Brake release. Finally get it out, swap the new one in, re-insert the long triangular stem and knob so I can pull it on and go hook the battery up.
Bigger than shit, the headlights work again.
Fuck around putting it all back together and thanking Jesus that it wasn’t the fucking turn signal switch instead.
The whole time I am sweating my ass off in 90 degree heat but at the same time, thanking Jesus again because it’s supposed to go from 90 today to the low 60’s tomorrow with rain.
It was just plain strange that the old switch shit the bed without any warning what so ever but at least it was a fairly easy repair.
