88 formula has damaged column. I have a good one out of a 86 Camaro. Will it plug and play?

 

Turn signal / brake light system is CONSIDERABLY different... one look at the back of the 2 cars should be all it takes.

 

i don't think that the look of the car has much to do with it. Wire connector s an stuff like that is what I'm talking about.

 

See post #8

 

The steering column doesn't have anything to do with the headlight or taillights except high low beam and ignition switch. I posted a similar question on interior forum. Thanks for the input.

 

The steering column has EVERYTHING to do with turn signals and brake lights.

The Bird uses the same bulbs for both, the Camaro uses different bulbs. Therefore the internal wiring and the turn signal switch are ENTIRELY different.

 

See post #8

 

An interesting footnote to this thread ;

Just for kicks , I went to "Rock Auto"s website and looked up the turn signal switch for a 1986 Camaro and then for a 1988 Firebird . According to Rock Auto , the turn signal switches for both cars carry the exact same part numbers ;

Airtex 8D8

OE Pro SM220

Standard motor products TW20

So I am now led to believe that either ;

Rock Auto is wrong , or , that the difference in numbers of bulbs between the two cars does not affect the turn signal switch and the differences must be in the harnesses only ? I know for fact the Trans Am had a different brake light configuration with different wiring as indicated by "Austin Third Gen"s schematics but even there the differences appear to be external to the turn signal switch .

In other words , I'm now not quite so sure that the swap wouldn't work ....

 

The "turn signal switch" that you buy at the store is only the moving part, with the moving contacts. Has nothing to do with which bulbs get lit up: that part is handled by the fixed part of the switch, which isn't replaced by the "switch" you buy at the store. It fits EVERY GM car and truck over a period of decades.

If you put a Camaro column into a Firebird, the rear turn signals won't work, because the wire that goes EXCLUSIVELY to the YELLOW bulbs in a Camaro (which is to say, the ONLY wire that has rear TS on it), doesn't have a wire to hook up to in a Firebird; but the wire that goes to the brake lights doesn't get switched off of the brake light switch power source and onto the flasher power source, like it would in the Bird, because the Camaro brake lights work at all times regardless of whether the TSs are blinking or not.

If you swapped the other way, i.e. put a Bird column into a Camaro, then what would happen is, the YELLOW TS bulbs in the Camaro light assy would never flash, but the RED BRAKE LIGHT bulbs would instead blink like turn signals, the way they do in the Birds.

 

With all due respect to the "fixed" and "moving" parts of the turnsignal switch , this sure looks like the entire unit to me , right down to both the fixed and moving parts of the switch . Rock auto lists this exact same part for both cars . Just for grins , look up the same thing I did , 86 Camaro and 88 Firebird with all the other on line parts sources and you'll see what I saw , they all list the same part numbers for the two different cars .

 

You're right, that is both halves of it.

Well hey, maybe it'll work then.

 

Believe me I'm as surprised as you are because I was always under the impression that due to the different configuration of lights that there had to be a different switch for each particular setup . I can see no other reason why Rock Auto and all the others I checked would offer the same part number for the different car's switch other than the difference must have been in the harnesses themselves with the same switch usable with either harness , or would the advertised switch really only work in one car and not the other despite being listed for both ?

I'm willing , in the face of such strong evidence , to admit that my longstanding belief of there being a different switch for each different car may have been mistaken

 

Even if the deal with the lights is correct and the same switch will indeed run both , there is another consideration here . A quick look at the wiring diagrams for 1986 VS 1988 windshield wipers shows that there are differences between the two systems so the wiper switch may need to be swapped between the columns , if they both mount in the same way . If the switches cannot be swapped then the wipers could very well be an issue here ....