I just bought a 1991 firebird...had to buy a rear hatch light for it. It has two prongs....looking the wires, I have a red/white connected to a blue that powers the pull down motor....I have an orange/brown connected to a white that is jsut hanging there....I assume the orange/brown gets connect to the light....is the other prong for a ground wire?? Any help would be much appreciated...thanks in advance...

 

The orange is the power to the bulb, the white is grounded by a white wire on the pulldown motor. The pulldown motor SHOULD have a blue wire and a white wire with similar single-cavity connectors. Unless it's a t-top car, in which case there is a manual switch thrown into the equation.

 

thanks for responding....It is a t-top....are you saying there should be a second blue wire from the pull down motor that would get connected to the light along with the brown and orange striped?? also from the posts that I've read I got the impression that the 91s did not have a manual switch for the light..they worked off the pull down motor...

 

I'm not actually sure what the conditions were to get a manual switch, so I probably shouldn't have said t-tops specifically.

I'm saying the pulldown motor should have two single wire connectors sprouting out of it. One is a blue wire, and one is a white.

The red/white wire coming from up front is POWER from the rear lid fuse (trunk lid, hatch or something like that; I forget exactly what the fuse was called just now).

Now if I remember right, the red wire goes straight to one prong on the bulb, and comes right back out of that prong (still red) and connects to the pulldown motor's blue wire. So that fuse powers both the light and the hatch motor.

The other prong on the light-connector has a black/orange wire (or it was white on my 86). That is the hatch light's ground wire. It connects to the white wire on the pulldown motor. I guess it's open whenever the motor is fully down.

 

thank you that was what i was missing...will check it out tonight...

 

That was it Jza.....my light now works when the hatch is opened...many thanks again!!

 

You got it, man.