Ok so I just put freshly rebuilt 350 into my 68 Cutlass. Everything is hooked up and working except for reverse lights. 99.9% sure I had them before I took out original engine. Something not hooked up? Neutral safety switch? Bulbs are brand new. Every other light works on car and fuse is good. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

start tracing the path from the front, starting at the NSS. the thinner wires are for the backup lights. your switch may have oxidized while the car was sitting, if you're lucky.
is your body ground good?


bill

 

So the connector with 2 green wires that is supposed to be connected to NSS isn't connect AND the light green wire is cut. I guess I didn't have reverse lights because nobody has worked on this car in the past 12 years that to sat. The end that goes up column is gangling and the other end is spliced into a new red wire that is mistakenly going down to something else, just not sure yet. The connector that is supposed to be on NSS is plugged onto the trans kickdown switch that is attached to gas pedal. Very interesting. Gotta figure out what happened to the kick down wiring then. Pretty tight to work on.

 

reconnected light green wire and plugged connector onto NSS. Reverse lights work, well at least passenger side. Drives side is all corroded. Found one on ebay to replace with. Now I gotta figure out whats going on with trans kick down. There is a connector with one orange wire and one pink wire just dangling. Looks like it would connect to the kick down. When I look at electrical diagram for car it shows that kick down solenoid has orange wire then ground. So now the question is the wire that was originally spliced into the light green wire that goes through firewall and down to the side of the trans....what is that???

 

Good times. i bought a car that at one point had a problem with the reverse lights. The previous owner "fixed" it by wrigging up a doorbell switch under the car. The switch was held to the body with sheet metal and positioned so that the stick shift rod would hit it when you'd go into reverse. To top it off, the guy wired it using extension cords.

It was a pretty sad sight to see, but in some strange, stupid way I did admire the guy's work. Even though there was no chance I would leave it that way.

Good to see you've got that working and you're using a wiring diagram. Have fun!

 

just my best guess, here: a previous owner had a tranny that had the reverse light switch on the side of the tranny.
from what i recall of my '69 cutlass, the wire going to the jetaway for the kick down was black underneath the car. i think there was a pink and an orange going to the kick down switch by the loud pedal. with a test light, you can check this to see if it functions correctly before connecting it to the tranny.


bill