Amen, Josh.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines

FYI, In 1973, my best friend had a 73 gold Duster. It had a foot operated (manual) windshield washer pump. This was a factory item. AND, each door had a handle on the inside that you used to crank the windows up or down with (this was often referred to as the 'air conditioning'). AND, it had the Hi/Lo beam switch for the headlights on the floor.
We had no computers or internet back then (really), so things were a little crude.

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-MattMan
LEANED & MEAN

Imagine how people felt when the key started your car instead of the push button on the floor by the gas pedal.......

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

I started with a '50 Ford F1. It had the button on the dash.

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“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

I suppose the foot operated windshield washer fluid bladder would blow people's minds these days.

How about AM radios, with the linear analog channel adjustment? (WTF is this !? )

Roger

My '72 Dart still has the original wiper foot pump... and dimmer switch...

I think we blew it with the original poster... We became "those internet guys"...

I'm gonna PM him.

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Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser

Yeah. We need him back. We are small in numbers as it is.

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“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

Hey, RUSTER! Welcome aboard! Because of the "vintage" of the Slant engines, there are some knowledgeable (?) and experienced "Vintage" old guys on this forum, mixed in with the normal working Slanters who are just trying to keep these old collectibles alive on a budget. This site has YEARS of good postings and threads on just about any Slanted-vehicle subject, so just ask! We are all here to happily support each other, and especially to encourage you, and all hovering around who are new to the Slanted life.

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"Louise", a 1976 Dart Custom project, (now sadly reverted to being just an "organ donor" to our other project Darts.)

Sorry, haven't checked in since I got a response. The high-beam switch (previously known as "where the third water leak is coming from") does work. In fact, I've been driving with the high-beams on for the whole time I've driven the car (about a month now, daily). I couldn't tell they were on because of how pitifully weak the headlights are compared to most of the eye-shattering LED crap that's on the road. One other problem I've noticed is that all the dash lights are, for some reason, wired into the high-beam circuit. They turn off when I'm using low beams. This is something of a problem as I already have to squint at the temp gauge at night, as half the dash lights have already died.

THAT must have P-O'd a few other drivers you met at night.



Oh, my! That is a bit of a problem. Some previous owner must have forked around with the wiring, and hacked it up just to get things "working" to a degree. Looks like you're going to have to stick your head up under the dash and sneak a peek at things to determine just how bad it is.

Good luck.....Roger

I doubt it. My '73 has the "big" 37 amp alternator on it. Blinding people with the headlights is not an issue.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

You did make the mental connection between the two above comments, right? It's subtle, but a gem of a hint regarding what type of damage to look for.


Yikes, that's a bit of an understatement. Are you good with figuring out electrical diagrams? For a car of this vintage, the circuit you want can probably fit on one page. (For my 1964, the entire car fit into 3 pages.) Search the forum and find links for books, Factory Service Manuals, diagrams... You absolutely want to correct this. It's not rocket science even though it feels like it to a first-timer. And it's needless to say 100x times easier to fix if it's still functional: your dimmer switch is supposed to cycle from high to low -- you don't want it to cycle through all subsequent states of high-low-smoke-off.


Probably. Though I must thank Chrysler for making it. It worked quite well and allowed an amazing amount of user control to squirt at the exact point on the windshield that you wanted it -- to counteract the difference between airflow at standstill vs. highway speeds, for example. But there's another advantage to modern life: my memory of the 73 Duster is the main reason I was able to figure out how the hand washing station works at the Pick-n-Pull junk yard.

Back on topic, when was the last year for a floor dimmer switch? I'm pretty sure the Aspen/Volare still had it...

- Erik

PS. for what it's worth, I've read tales of folks who are so delightfully obstinate/pigheaded/dreamy/whatever that they will disconnect the turn signal wiring and extend wires down to the floor as it should be. I believe the talk was of early 70s (or maybe even late 60s?) Volvos. I resisted my urge to suggest they leave both connected and wire it as a three-way configuration, so that either your hand or your foot could take control at any moment.

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Lots of early Valiants and Barracudas have crossed my path.
Also a handful of other toys for variety now and then.

The crude diagram fits on 2 pages... the field service manual for 1973 will be similar to 1967-1972 since it uses the same fuse block.
Sadly, because of the added options of heated window defrosters, map light circuit, etc... the FSM wiring diagram will cover about 6-8
pages. The bad part, is that 1973-1974 FSM's aren't cheap because they cover the Barracuda/Challenger E-body and people think they
are gold...FYI.

On an A-body, check the ground at the instrument cluster, and check the ground at the headlight harness near the battery tray.

X2 on ground issue. Clean and check for tightness the headlight and dash cluster ground wires.

And remember your car is over 40 years old. The previous owner{s) probably never monkeyed with any of the wiring before you got it.