Interior light Switch

[kjphilippona]

My interior light switch on the drivers side does not work, the passenger side works some of the time. I was looking into replacing them but ran into a problem finding a replacement for the drivers side. MSA has it as a discontinued part and rock auto has one that has 5 leads on it and from reading this form the original should only have 2. Does anyone know where i can get replacements :classic:

[clayton 260z]

Try ebay thats where I found mine. On my early model 260 the drivers side has 3 and pass. has 2 wires.

Good luck.

[kjphilippona]

So as i don't break anything, what is the trick to removing the light switch grommet. It looks like rubber that has turned into plastic and will split or brake int a million pieces as soon as i try to pry it off :disappoin

[SteveJ]

Okay, I'll bite. What part were you looking at on RockAuto? I searched for a 77 280Z there, and I saw three different parts. Two had four leads, and one had two leads. Granted the two lead part is "non-stock", but it should be available. They will email you if they can't get it.

Black Dragon lists parts 71-770 and 71-771 as working for a 77 280Z.

[kjphilippona]

Thanks SteveJ, guess my searching skills are not the best :stupid:

[SteveJ]

It does help to have the paper copies of the Blackdragon catalogs around. Sometimes the part names don't come up in a search of their site.

[kjphilippona]

So true, do you think BG or rock auto will have the better quality switch ?

[kjphilippona]

Did not want to put you on the spot on that last question, i have only ordered from MSA and was very displeased with the quality of parts. I needed to replace the ball joints and they sent Korean made piece of junk, i had to use them because i scheduled the time in a friends shop to replace them. I plan not to order anything from them again.

Edited December 18, 2010 by kjphilippona

[warcmalla]

I just replaced both sides with used ones from zcar source. They were in good condition. I think I paid $9.95 each.

[kjphilippona]

Could you tell me the tricks to replacing them without breaking anything

[SteveJ]

Did not want to put you on the spot on that last question, i have only ordered from MSA and was very displeased with the quality of parts. I needed to replace the ball joints and they sent Korean made piece of junk, i had to use them because i scheduled the time in a friends shop to replace them. I plan not to order anything from them again.

IMHO, Rockauto has some decent quality parts. I picked up a nice combo switch from there. However, I know they carry some lower line parts. Airtex is a generic aftermarket parts company, and I don't know much about their quality. It is likely Blackdragon is using a similar supplier, too. Rockauto seems to make up some of the pricing differences through higher S&H charges.

Z Car Source is on the high side for used parts, but the door stoppers I purchased from them are in pretty good shape for 30+ year old parts.

Keep in mind that all of these vendors have similar sources for parts. I do know that MSA still carries plenty of NOS parts.

In the end, I think there's always going to be a little hit-or-miss with the parts vendors, and that's going to be due to a large part that there are lots of parts they have to buy from suppliers with varying definitions of quality.

[warcmalla]

My experience is with the 240z, but I'm sure they are probably similar. You'll have to contort your body around to chase down the wires under the dash that connect to the switches. You must unhook these first so you can pull the switches out through the hole in the door jam. It's never a comfortable experience to do anything under the dash so I considered unhooking them the most difficult part of the job. During the process of restoring my z I just unhooked the wires under the dash and took some pliers and ripped the old ones out. I wasn't too concerned about the paint since it was all coming off anyway. Mine were so rusted that the button no longer moved and they had been stuck in for ages. The switches are just a cylinder with some spring tabs around the outside that press against the hole that they go through. They should pull out without too much force. I would try pulling on the button first and if that doesn't work see if you can get a thin blade between the switch and jam and work it out a little and then grab it with some pliers. Once they are out you can push the new ones back in and chase down the wires from behind the kick panel. Come to think about it, you'll probably have to remove your kick panel to get the wires out from behind and route them through the hole in the kick panel. When I replaced mine I also installed some custom speaker kick panels, so I already had mine out. Not sure what 280z kick panels look like or how they are removed, but mine were held in with the hood latch bracket, turn signal relay, a plastic interior rivet, and some metal tabs toward the firewall and on the passenger side I had relays and all the brackets as well. You might have more or less to remove. Crawl down in there and remove that stuff and the kick panels come out pretty easily. I suppose you could attach a string to the end of your old switch wires and pull it through when you remove it and use the string to pull the new wires through the kick panel. That was my experience, hope it helps.

Marc