I tried to do a search before posting but came up empty.

Here's my dilemma. I have an 83 Z28 with the steel hood. The under hood light was working with no problems, but I wanted to spice it up a bit for car shows. I bought 4 24" led strips to attach under the hood to replace the ancient incandescent bulb. It looked pretty straight forward... single positive wire to the bulb, grounds out to the hood... so I snipped the wire and connected everything up. There were 2 bolts holding the light to the hood, one holding a wire that runs into a loom, the other not. If I ground the leds to the bolt with the wire, they stay on all the time, even with the hood closed. If I ground them to the other bolt, they dont come on at all. The wire seems to run through the loom and connect to a 2nd bolt on the fender along with a bare ground strap. What sort of sorcery has Gm used to make this little light turn on and off?

Oh and running my multimeter from the bolts to the + battery terminal results in 2 different readings... with wire = 12v, without wire = 6v. 3rd my useless Haynes manual proved itself to be even more useless as it has wiring diagrams for every damn light in the car but that one!!

 

The under hood light socket/holder that bolts to the hood has a mercury switch inside of it. You'll have to come up with a switch to turn your leds on and off.

 

Yep.

Because the hood is open nearly all day in a car show, I removed mine.

JamesC

 

Thanks guys... I noticed this about 10 minutes ago actually. I think Im going to go to Radio Shack tomorrow and pick up a small weather proof rocker switch. Thanks for the replies though.

 

You could even get a mercury switch from radio shack and wire it to your leds. Take a little fabbing to get it to work.