This is absolutely true. Consider that even though you may be driving a different year of Imperial, or any other old car, this problem may exist with the headlights. It can be caused by dirty contacts within the switch, a bad dimmer switch, or even bad connections elsewhere in the system. The floor mounted dimmer switch is going to be exposed to the most abuse since it is one the floor, often covered in dirt above and below, as well as usually being in a damp enviornment. All of these causes can be cleaned/rebuilt, but not easily since they were intended to be replaced. I personally think that the floor dimmer switch should be suspected/replaced first anytime a headlight issue is encountered.
Paul W.
One of the most common and vexing problems with '67-68 Imperials is the headlamp switch. My understanding of the sequence of events: The electrical connections inside the switch get corroded or otherwise wonky over time. This causes resistance, which causes heat. The heat causes the internal circuit breaker to break the circuit, thus killing the headlights. Since the circuit is broken now, the switch cools down, so the circuit breaker starts allowing current through again, and the headlights come back on. The current causes the switch to heat up again, and so the cycle continues, causing the headlights to flash on and off indefinitely (probably unbeknownst to the driver).
The corrosion problem isn't unique to Imperials, of course. The reason it's such a pain with '67-68 Imperials is that their headlamp switch is unique to those years, and unique to Imperial even within those years. (Other Chrysler cars use different switches, and they're not easily interchangeable.) And the problem seems to be nearly universal, even in unused switches -- I bought a few used switches and even an NOS switch at considerable expense, only to find that every one of them had the same trouble as my original one. To make matters worse, Chrysler seems to have gone out of their way to make the danged things difficult to pry open.
Not being a masochist, I finally gave up and authorized my mechanic to bypass the stock switch and install a separate toggle switch under the dash. It's not too convenient, and I've lost the ability to turn on the parking lights only, but at least I don't have to worry about other drivers thinking I'm flashing my headlights to get their attention or warn them about speed traps or something.
But that was a few years ago, before Elijah Scott started offering his switch rebuilding service. My recommendation: Rather than waste your time and sanity trying to find a replacement switch that actually works, send your existing one to Elijah, and get on with your life. Here's his web page:
http://home.comcast.net/~imperial1971/
Tim Klein
Dallas, Texas
http://www.timklein.com
-----------------
http://www.imperialclub.com -----------------
This message was sent to you by the Imperial Mailing List. Please reply to
mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and your response will be shared with everyone. Private messages (and attachments) for the
Administrators should be sent to
webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To UN-SUBSCRIBE, go to
http://imperialclub.com/unsubscribe.htm
Back to the Home of the Forward Look Network