Good morning ladies and gents... I am calling in for help. My dad and I have been putting back together his 72 Cutlass with a 455. You all have been extremely helpful.

Long story short, somebody else took it apart and didn't label anything. Additionally, this car was molested a bit before my dad owned it, however everything seemed to work prior to disassembly.
I also want to add that we changed out the gauges to rally gauges with the tic tock tach. I switch the pins over and did the whole thing as instructed by one of you amazing people here.

We installed the dash and plugged everything in. We have problems.

1. No power to starter
2. Map plight stays on after you turn it off.
3. Courtesy lights turn off when map light turns on and vise versa
4. Courtesy lights don't turn off with the pin switches (They did before we installed the steering column)
5. When the key is turned off, the "gen" light turns on... and vise versa.
6. Temp gauges sweeps when the map light is turned on.

These were the symptoms that I could identify. Some of them are obviously pretty odd. The map lights shouldn't be on the same circuit anywhere close to the temp gauge. Etc.

Im here hoping that one of you can point me in a confident direction. Thank you for your time.

 

Do you have a 1972 Chassis Service Manual? If not, get one. If you do, turn to the fold-out wiring diagram and trace the circuits in question. It sounds like you have multiple problems, including potentially bad or missing ground straps on the back of the plastic instrument panel. Take each problem one at a time (starting with power to the fuse panel and ignition switch). Trace the circuit at each point from the battery on back. Use a test light (preferred) or voltmeter. This isn't a problem that will be solved remotely over the interwebs. Typically you will get a bunch of shotgun responses, most of them incorrect. Solving this requires systematic and methodical troubleshooting and circuit tracing, period.

FYI, there is no connection between the dome light circuit and the steering column, unless you broke the orange power feed to the dome light while working on the column. The dome light gets power at all times from the orange wire. The white wire runs to the pin switches (and the headlight switch) and provides the ground leg for that circuit. You will see this when you look at the wiring diagram. Check for power at the orange wire in the dome light housing. If you get 12V, the problem is on the ground side. If not, figure out why you are not getting power on the orange wire. All the other problems must be corrected the same way.

 

I appreciate your insight. I'm very aware that this will simply be a trouble shooting situation. Our main struggle is that we couldn't plug everything in until actually installing the dashboard, which makes it next to impossible to actually diagnose given the lack of room behind the dashboard. It looks like we will be pulling it back out though.

 

Sounds like you pinched some wires while doing the column.