Front door handle lights not working

[Bill Wolf]

My front door handle lights would not go on when I opened the doors. Bulbs were good and had power to them. Was not getting a ground. The door switch was corroded and wasn't making contact when the door was opened. Bypassed the switch and the lights are working. Good so far. (Jason, do you have extra switches for sale?)

The map light wasn't working due to a burned-out bulb. I replaced the bulb, turned off the map light and the door lights stopped working. Turned the map light back on and the door lights worked again. I was losing the ground to the door switches when the map light was off.

Here is the fix I came up with and the door handle lights and map light works as it should. Any thoughts? Can't understand why the original wiring doesn't work.

[Kurt]

If I remember correctly, the stock door switches have 3 terminals. 1 grounds the front interior lights, 1 grounds the rear interior lights, and 1 grounds the map light when the door is open. If you don't have 3 terminal switches or any terminals are tied together, it will provide a ground to other lights when you switch on the map light. Same thing for the rear light switch on the back of the front seat, if any terminals are tied together at the door switch, it will ground them too when the switch is on.

[Bill Wolf]

My 63 SDV only has two wires on the front door switch (a black/white and a black) and it only operates the front doors. The back doors work by themself. Did you see the colored wiring schematic that Jason put in the wiring section of the HELP section? 

[Kurt]

Yeah, I've seen that wiring diagram. It's very helpful. Looks like the sedans are different but I'd say the problem is the same. The lights are either grounded by the door switch or the manual light switches. If your wiring is good & the door switches are functioning properly and making good bare metal contact, they will ground each wire connected to them. When your door lights only came on when the map light was on, that circuit was getting a ground through the map light switch, not the door switch. You can simply pull the wires off the door switches & ground them individually to test each circuit. The 12V at each wire is flowing through the bulbs so they will light up as the wire is grounded so it should not be a fuse-blowing direct short to ground. You would have to undo your mod to set things back to stock though.