Interior courtesy light - Repair

[mike1980ra40]

How many people have dodgy interior lights that dont work?
everything found from wreckers is just as stuffed, so heres what I did to fix it.

things you'll need,

drill with 2.5mm bit
small needle nose pliers
small screwdrivers
stanley knife or hot knife
fine grade sand paper
5x small screws with hex nuts

1. take the light out and with the drill, drill out the little rivets (marked with yellow)
2. with your knife cut the tops of the melted plastic bits that hold the switch on. (marked with red)



after that it should look like this



3. put switch in a vice and bend up the little tabs ( yellow arrows)



4. once the the tabs are bent up you can take the bottom of the switch out.
dont be surprised to find the little copper track is burnt



5. gently sand off the blackness untill it looks new again



6. while your sanding gently run the little clip along some sandpaper to clean the little contacts.

7. while your there you can bend that little spring back up to tighten up the switch

8. put the switch back together.



9. put the switch back into the light fitting using some small screws



10. hook up the light and test it, once its all good put back in your roof and enjoy







cheers.

[mike1980ra40]

Picture for step 6



Edit: one thing to note, the spring in this switch isn't very bendable, so bend is carefully..
once all done it should be as good as new.

[GtiRboy]

awesome guide!! I could never figure out in my ke70 why the light wouldn't work, although i didn't look too hard i knew it wasn't because of a blown fuse or whatnot.

Plus rep!

Thanks

[LeeRoy]

Awesome guide. Was your interior light not working at all or it was intermittently working. The one in my corolla is a bit like that and wont always work whether its 'on' or on 'door'.

Would door switches be the same thing with the burnt contacts too. A few of mine are a little twitchy - sometimes work, sometimes dont.

[mike1980ra40]

It was intermittent to start with, then stopped working all together, went to a few wreckers
and tried other lights. they were all stuffed. I pulled every one apart to see what was wrong
and all of them (6 lights) all had burnt tracks in the switch.

All the lights I had from wreckers all had globes that were to high a wattage, eg auto parts
store 10w globes (nice and hot also bright enough to be parker lights) add to that general
wear and tear and the contact inside the switch starts to arc.

I used 5w door lights in the roof light and it's still bright enough to find your way around in
the dark.

thanks for reminding me on door switches, mine were dirty greasy and rusty, I took mine
out cleaned them up.

something to check is the tightness off that little clip that runs along that track, if it is
loose, you'll need to tighten it by squeezing the top folded bit with a pair of small pliers,
don't over tighten it.

hope it works for you all

cheers.

[Chrisso]

If you're looking for brighter interior lights JayCar has 31mm and 41mm led set ups which are very bright. Unsure of their amp rating, but I'm lead to believe that leds use considerably less power than standard globes, so may also prolong the life of your newly cleaned up contacts.

[Lachie]

Did you only try RA40 lights? Toyota used the same interior light for years across a range of models, so maybe trying a later model one would prove more useful. The interior light in my AE93 looks like it was made for mthe same mould as my RA23

[mike1980ra40]

hi lachie,

the lights i tried where all RA40. the plugs between series 1 and 2 are a slightly different size. so putting in a light from a 77 ra40 into an 81 or 82 means changing the socket, not difficult to do all you need is a jewelers screwdriver.