maheider

I have seen a lot of pictures of 66 Toronados, but I have not seen a picture that shows the **** I have in my car that controls opening the headlights. The is a **** on the opposite side of the wiper and washer buttons from the actual headlamp switch in my car. I have not seen this in pics of other cars but maybe it is there and I have not been able to see it.

I am wondering if this is standard, or perhaps some sort of aftermarket engineeiring. I would have assumed that turning the lights on would open the headlamp doors. That is the way it worked on my 69 Lincoln Mark III. On this car, turning on the headlamps does turn them on, but they simply point down inside the car. I have to pull that **** to get them to open. The **** looks very factory like, but it seems unlikely that they would have designed it to require two ***** to turn the lights on.

The second question is just about what the fake dial is that is on the right side of my heater controls. I assume it controls an option I don't have, like maybe auto climate control or something but I'm not real sure. Can someone tell me what that would do if I had the correct option?

I will try to post a picture of my dash that shows the two items in a bit.

Thanks for all the help you all provide here. This is a wonderful resource, and hopefully my questions are not too dumb. It probably would help if I had the owners manual, but I don't have one and have been unable to find one available for purchase. I'd even settle for an electronic version but it would be nice to have the real thing.

Mark

billmerbach

Honestly to me the dial almost looks like a dimmer but I'm not sure tbh with you

maheider

Yeah, I though maybe that was the case at first. The dial has a silver mark next to it as if to show what it is set to. But, the dial does not turn. It appears to be a molded fake one in place of some other option the car does not have. There is no label next to it, nor is there a label indicating what the **** that opens the headlamp does either, which makes me think it wa added later, though the **** style matches the other one to turns the lights on.

The dash dimming is controlled by the headlamp ****, so it's not like dimming was an option that would go with that dial.

billmerbach

Ok that makes sense

elcaminodave

On my car, the **** in that spot is the cruise control. My **** is different. The wheel is also for cruise on my car. Wheel has numbers on it starting with 30 and going up in increments of 10.

68RocketAction

I am not really sure about the 66 and 67's. On the 68 and 69's you pull the **** for the parking/headlights and turn the **** to adjust the instrument panel lights. The right would be the cruise control, but you **** looks different then the illustration below.

1966 Toronado Instrument Panel

68RocketAction

When you turn on the headlights do you hear a hissing sound coming from under the dash or from engine compartment? If its the original setup they are vacuum and tied to the headlight switch. Some people have converted these to electric using motors from a ford probe.

maheider

I can't say for certain, but I think the headlamps are being actuated by vacuum. I have not noticed anything being added as far as motors in the area of the doors, but it is a bit crowded there so I suppose I could have overlooked them.

But, if they are driven by electric motors, the motors are very sluggish. The doors open slowly, with the one to the driver's side opening first, and the one on the passenger side opening second. I believe the vacuum reservoir is on the driver's side so it makes sense to me that it would open first. I am guessing there is probably a small vacuum leak somewhere or another since it is sluggish opening the doors. I think I also tried once with the engine not running and they would not open, which seems to indicate that the vacuuum had bled off through a leak. Opening them with the engine off would make it easier to hear the sound of the vacuum, so I suppose I could let it run for a while, shut the engine off and try right away afterwards to see if I can hear the hissing.

Anyway, the way the doors open up is very similar to the way the ones on my 69 Lincoln did, and those were vacuum operated as well, so it seems unlikely to me that they are electrically driven. Now, why the previous owner would have installed a separate switch on the dash to control the vacuum opening of the doors is beyond me, if that is indeed what happened. Seems like if there were an issue with the headlamp normal **** it would have been a lot easier to simply fix that than to route over to a new switch. The extra switch appears to be the same as the original headlamp one, at least the way it looks, so he went to the trouble of getting a matching **** too.

waterzap

The headlights are vacuum. Could be that the original light switch broke. It also has vacuum hoses going to it. Then you would have to have an external switch for the vacuum controls

maheider

The headlights are vacuum from the factory. I was responding to the suggestion that some have modified the original setup to drive them with electric motors instead.

I guess I can't fathom why someone would get what appears to be the same switch as the original headlight switch, drill a hole in the dash, and route the vacuum lines to it if there was a problem with the factory installed switch. Seems far easier to remove the bad one and replace it rather than going through that trouble. That being said, it seems like that is exactly what happened.

maheider

I forgot to say thanks for the image of the panel. That is what I was thinking would be in the manual if I had one.

waterzap

I dont know if that switch is easy to get anymore. I had a cadillac Seville, and the previous owner did all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff, instead of just buying a $5 part

maheider

I'm sure it is hard to find, but as I mentioned, the extra one that has been added appears to be the same switch used in the factory, just installed on the other side of the wiper controls. It looks exactly the same to me, and functions the same.

Based on the history of ownership of this car, the modification was done 20 or more years ago, so presumably parts were easier to get at that time. It appears that this is just a unique feature of my car. It looks OK, works relatively well, and I don't think I will be able to determine why it was done that way. At least it will make it hard to steal in the dark, as the crook would probably have a hard time figuring out how to get the lights turned on.

waterzap

One of my friends has a 70’s Pontiac. His son tried to help him with something and tried to start the car. He kept the starter running too long and burned it out. With carbs you need go give a bit of gas. Thieves might not even know how to start the car.

MDchanic

Probably the switch went bad, he couldn't get the original vacuum switch, got a regular headlight switch and installed it instead, then added a second switch for the vacuum.

- Eric

maheider

Very likely that is the case Eric.

I'm half tempted to pull both of them and see if they are the same or not. I assume the correct headlight switch not only has contacts to close the headlamp circuit and also a valve of some sort to open the doors to the vacuum source. If nothing else, I am curious to see how they work.

68RocketAction

I would differently assume that there is a vacuum leak somewhere. I had a ton of issues with the headlight shutters on my 68 due to a leaking control valve. The shutters would only open/close for me about 10% of the time and when they would work they would move fairly slow. They should be lightning fast. Luckily I found a replacement valve off a 69 from a guy locally. They don't make these anymore, but you can substitute it with a headlight control valve off a 68-82 Corvette. (The previous owner may have done this) However the orig Toronado valve has 5 vacuum hose connections and the Corvette valve has only 4. So to make this work you have to block off the red vacuum line coming from the headlight switch. Of course that might not be your issue at all.

Here is the orig headlight vacuum hose routing for the 66 (top) and 67 (bottom). I would just try comparing it to what you see under the hood. It kind of looks like 66 is a little different, but I couldn't find a good diagram.

68RocketAction

I am still a little confused on these two switches.

To determine my issues was not my switch. (of course I only have one) I just made sure I was getting steady vacuum from the yellow striped hose (at Control Valve) with the headlights off and steady vacuum from the red striped hose with the headlights on.

68RocketAction

Here you go. Found a good one for 66 and there is no control valve like 67-69's. Sorry I was thinking 66 was the same.

maheider

Thanks for the diagram. I will check this weekend to see if my routing conforms to that document.