Anyone know if there is a trick to disassembling the trunk lamp to clean and repair/rebuild the same way you can with the under hood courtesy lamp?

Wire has been cut right by the housing.

With the under hood lamp you can force the guts out of the housing from the wire side. I tried this with the trunk lamp but it doesn't seem to want to come out, looks like it might be crimped or something. Didn't want to force it.

All parts come from a 68 442.

 

Hey Roth

Is tha 68 the same as 69? I have a 69 I can look at to compare if it is...any pics?

Dean

 

'68 and "69 trunk lamp fixtures are the same.

Randy C.

 

Hey Dean, good to hear from you, the summer got hectic and still haven't gotten those wheels you sold me on the car!

As Randy noted, I believe 68 and 69 are the same, some pictures are attached.

As you can see, with some better lighting in the garage and in the... sober ... light of day, I did manage to get it open this morning. It does push apart the same way as the under hood lamp, although I'm not sure it's necessarily intended to.

While the mercury bulb is intact, the post inside it looks to be pretty corroded and I cant get any continuity through it with a volt meter no matter which way I turn it. I'm guessing that its compromised but the surface tension of the mercury is keeping it inside the bulb.

Anyone know if you can get replacements for the mercury bulb?

 

I doubt one can get a mercury bulb replacement, given that mercury is a hazardous substance. Did they not come out with a substitute for use in this device?

 

Seemed like a long shot. They make these trunk lamp kits but I believe they're only correct for 70-72:

https://www.opgi.com/cutlass/G240503/

 

I saw the same or similar on thepartsplace or fusick I forget which, less money too. If you want a 68-9 style let me dig mine out I'll get a couple pics for you, probably can't get to it till this weekend. I'll send you a PM when I find it.

 

Roth

I found my 69 trunk lamp same result as yours no continuity, I did not take it apart. I did see a couple similar ones on eBay search Oldsmobile trunk light, also if you search tilt switch on eBay there were many matches for both Mercury and rhos compliant versions that maybe you can retrofit to your lamp. Maybe another member has already done this and will post what they did. If you do retrofit another type of switch to yours lmk as I would like to fix mine now too....

 

Sorry it took me so long to respond, been traveling and haven't had much free time.

I'm going to try to keep the appearance correct to the year, but good to know the same unit is available cheaper somewhere else, opgi is usually the first place I search and the last place I buy!

I'll let you know what I come up with, I've thought about trying to wire it into the headlight switch so that it would be on with the parking lamps, but I think that would cause many more problems than it would solve. Might rig the switch to be always on and then wire one of these (https://www.amazon.com/Parts-Express...ds=tilt+switch) into the wire and conceal it inside the deck lid.