Underhood Light

Is the hood light only suppose to turn on when the head lights are on? This is the first time I really worked under the hood in the dark (with the hood attached) and noticed it goes out with the head lights and only comes on when they are on. Thanks!

Yes the underhood light, as wired from factory, only lights when hood is raised and parkinglights or headlights are on. Supposedly that is a feature.

Albertj

albertj wrote:

Yes the underhood light, as wired from factory, only lights when hood is raised and parkinglights or headlights are on. Supposedly that is a feature.

Albertj

That feature is about as useful as the jumper points under the hood to give it a boost after you drain your battery keeping your headlights on to take a peek under the hood. I have yet to successfully boost my car using those points. I always end up having to take the seat out of the back.

GMFreak8 wrote:

albertj wrote:

Yes the underhood light, as wired from factory, only lights when hood is raised and parkinglights or headlights are on. Supposedly that is a feature.

Albertj

That feature is about as useful as the jumper points under the hood to give it a boost after you drain your battery keeping your headlights on to take a peek under the hood. I have yet to successfully boost my car using those points. I always end up having to take the seat out of the back.

Hmm. I've never drained my battery. My lights turn off automatically, even the interior lights. I have jump started many others, and the little terminal IS a pain in the butt to use, what with the belts whzizzing by right next to the post and all...

deekster_caddy wrote:

GMFreak8 wrote:

albertj wrote:

Yes the underhood light, as wired from factory, only lights when hood is raised and parkinglights or headlights are on. Supposedly that is a feature.

Albertj

That feature is about as useful as the jumper points under the hood to give it a boost after you drain your battery keeping your headlights on to take a peek under the hood. I have yet to successfully boost my car using those points. I always end up having to take the seat out of the back.

Hmm. I've never drained my battery. My lights turn off automatically, even the interior lights. I have jump started many others, and the little terminal IS a pain in the butt to use, what with the belts whzizzing by right next to the post and all...

I guess I just take too long under the hood. I was checking some stuff out one time and I turned the lights on manually by the switch, and by the time I had finished and it being extremely cold out, it didn't have enough juice left to turn it over.

I can always get to the post ok, it's something to do with the quality of the connection that makes boosting it without connecting to the battery itself almost useless. It's ok for trickle charging, but doesn't seem to work very good for boosting. Of course it being -20 here and trying to start the car probably has something to do with it.

If you've ever tried to start the car with a battery that isn't strong enough to turn it over, but has enough reserve left to power everything else does your security light trigger? I listened to my radio a little too long the other day and the battery had enough juice left to power the radio, and all accessories, but it would only turn the car over two times slowly before the security light kicked in preventing me from even trying to start it. I connected the booster pack to the battery and it still wouldn't start. I had to wait ten minutes for the security system to reset. That's happened to me twice now.

Sounds normal, I have seen security confused by low voltage.
Unless it gets habitual ignore it.

98inSFl wrote:

Sounds normal, I have seen security confused by low voltage.
Unless it gets habitual ignore it.

You wouldnt happen to know if there is a fuse that can be pulled to disable it? I swear if it was disabled I could get it to start. It has enough power to turn the car over, just the security system intervenes before it can start.

The security system is not that easy to bypass, no fuse pulling or box tampering will help.

The only advise I have is what you already know, remove the battery, take it inside a safe place to thaw out, then charge it.

98inSFl wrote:

The security system is not that easy to bypass, no fuse pulling or box tampering will help.

The only advise I have is what you already know, remove the battery, take it inside a safe place to thaw out, then charge it.

Should have known that. My last buick literally had a fuse under the hood clearly labeled "security".

GMFreak8 wrote:

albertj wrote:

Yes the underhood light, as wired from factory, only lights when hood is raised and parkinglights or headlights are on. Supposedly that is a feature.

Albertj

That feature is about as useful as the jumper points under the hood to give it a boost after you drain your battery keeping your headlights on to take a peek under the hood. I have yet to successfully boost my car using those points. I always end up having to take the seat out of the back.

Hmmm... next time you have some time on your hands and have the seat out you might want to look carefully at the condition of the crimps/splices on the battery cables. If there is corrosion under th crimp it can interfere with charging/jumping.

If that is the case, have to strip cable back to good uncorroded wire and re-terminate, or replace the cable. Cables from the battery look like they might be a bit much to replace (I have not done it) but if there is a corrosion problem, it probably has not crept that far up the cable and so you could probably cut off the bad part and install a terminal block; then get a short cable off-the-shelf. You'll need to crimp a terminal onto the end. Actually, I would crimp and solder the terminal with rosin-core; you're unlikely to get corrosion under the solder.

If & when you check that out let us know.

Albert

albertj wrote:

GMFreak8 wrote:

albertj wrote:

Yes the underhood light, as wired from factory, only lights when hood is raised and parkinglights or headlights are on. Supposedly that is a feature.

Albertj

That feature is about as useful as the jumper points under the hood to give it a boost after you drain your battery keeping your headlights on to take a peek under the hood. I have yet to successfully boost my car using those points. I always end up having to take the seat out of the back.

Hmmm... next time you have some time on your hands and have the seat out you might want to look carefully at the condition of the crimps/splices on the battery cables. If there is corrosion under th crimp it can interfere with charging/jumping.

If that is the case, have to strip cable back to good uncorroded wire and re-terminate, or replace the cable. Cables from the battery look like they might be a bit much to replace (I have not done it) but if there is a corrosion problem, it probably has not crept that far up the cable and so you could probably cut off the bad part and install a terminal block; then get a short cable off-the-shelf. You'll need to crimp a terminal onto the end. Actually, I would crimp and solder the terminal with rosin-core; you're unlikely to get corrosion under the solder.

If & when you check that out let us know.

Albert

All the cables are in excellent shape from what I can tell. No corrosion. I did replace the terminal ends with new ones when I installed the stereo.

98inSFl wrote:

The security system is not that easy to bypass, no fuse pulling or box tampering will help.

The only advise I have is what you already know, remove the battery, take it inside a safe place to thaw out, then charge it.

Sounds like my Regal... Likes to throw the security light occasionally... Gotten annoying enough where I'm making plans to just kill that bulb in the cluster.

GMFreak8 wrote:

I guess I just take too long under the hood. I was checking some stuff out one time and I turned the lights on manually by the switch, and by the time I had finished it didn't have enough juice left to turn it over.

Remember, you only have to turn on the parking lights, not the headlights, to activate the underhood lamp...

BTW, we upgrade our headlights, turn signals and brake lights, so if you're looking for the best light bulb (TTBOMK) for the trunk and hood lamps, I recommend the #577. These suckers are 21 candlepower, and they "go both ways" - they have end caps for using in the trunk fixtures, but the caps can be taken off to expose the wires that hook over the hood lamp terminals. I swear, that hood light is so bright that I don't need a drop light...

Why not just wire it to a switch that activates it like on the older cars or other cars when you open the hood.
You know the simple plunger type switch, don't know what they are really called. But next time I'm at the local auto parts store I'm looking for one and I'll change the bulb to a #577 as Eldo has recommended.
Or maybe just installing a small toggle switch right into the light housing. Then you you can turn it on and off as you need.
Or a mercury switch from the boneyard that only turns the light on when the hood is open and shuts it off as the hood nears closing.

OR, you could just use it as it is designed, just turn on the parking lights if the car isn't already running when you open the hood.

Actually Rick, the under-hood lamp has a tilt-switch built in - else it would be on all the time the headlights are...
If anyone really wants to change it, all they have to do is tie it into something under the hood that's hot all the time.

To be honest I never really gave the under-hood light any thought until this thread started.
At first I thought it was tied into the sunlight sensor somehow, as the light would not come on during the day when i was working under the hood, yet sometimes it would come on so i thought there was a fault, that I was willing to live with.
At night when i open the hood the light always came on, but am now realizing the the car has always been running at night when i opened the hood for any reason. Didn't do it enough to correlate what was happening.
Now that i know, I will just put on the parking lights during the day if I want the hood light on, when the car isn't running.
Simple enough, just never gave it much thought.
I would like to add an additional/auxiliary trunk light deeper in the trunk though.

Rickw wrote:

I would like to add an additional trunk light deeper in the trunk though.

One of the first things I ever did... I bought another factory trunk lamp (less than 10 bucks at the time) and stuck it in an existing rectangular hole in the body under the left side of the rear window.

Eldo wrote:

Rickw wrote:

I would like to add an additional trunk light deeper in the trunk though.

One of the first things I ever did... I bought another factory trunk lamp (less than 10 bucks at the time) and stuck it in an existing rectangular hole in the body under the left side of the rear window.

You mention Factory Lamp.
Was it an identical Riv Lamp or just a universal lamp.
All I was thinking of doing was to order a universal LED light assy from a catalog along with some other LED replacement bulbs that I've been thinking of experimenting with.

The exact plastic lamp that they mounted in the lid instead of the back of the trunk like they should have in the first place...

Combination stupidity: They use a lever-switch on the latch instead of a traditional tilt-switch socket, allowing them to place the actual bulb anywhere they want, then they plop it right in the lid anyway. Furthermore, that lever-switch provides a ready-made source for a Trunk Ajar light, but they left a blank space in the dash next to the Door Ajar light...

Eldo wrote:

Actually Rick, the under-hood lamp has a tilt-switch built in - else it would be on all the time the headlights are...
If anyone really wants to change it, all they have to do is tie it into something under the hood that's hot all the time.

using a 18 ga. or better wire (I'd use a 14), put a ring terminal on the end and tie it to the (+) post on the passenger side frame rail; route the wire through a wire loom that goes back to where you can connect it to the line that goes to the hood light. You can stick the wire in your own loom and use plastic clips with 3M adhesive squares to fasten the loomed wire to surfaces so it does not flop around and snag a belt.

If I remember what I was told right (like, 10 years ago) by a dealership mechanic, there is a real simple way to make the line to the hood light hot all the time that is obvious if you trace the wires back from the hood light. He was not any more specific and I was not interested enough to go look-so I pass that tidbit on as an FYI. I bet there is a hot-all-the-time line to the cigarette lighter or some such in a bundle of wires on the firewall, or maybe a hot line in the bundle to the hood light that Engineering did not bother to delete. Don't know.

In the same conversation, I was told (by the same mechanic) that the reason the hood light was not a hot-all-the-time to the tilt switch is that because the hood opens to a fairly acute angle, if it was hot all the time then the light would come on with the hood closed if you park the car a certain way on a fairly steep hill.

Details: I think max pitch angle for a city street is something like 25 or 30 degrees in some places; some driveways are pretty steep too - PLEASE correct me if I am mistaken here about that max pitch - and in order to be useful the light has to come on at a shallower angle, the Riv has a long hood and you can't let it open but so far or it goes way too far past the roofline. So if you are parked, the light has to come on before you open the hood very far. Consequently, there was no way to have the light hot all the time with a tilt switch and keep it from coming on if you parked a certain way on a hill, I think parking nose uphill on a 15-20 degree slope or some such was enough to get the light to come on. And for whatever reason they decided not to wire the hood light to the hood latch (like the trunk light), which IMHO would have worked. Although it probably would have required a switch contraption to be attached to the hood latch but not really integrated into it, and might have presented other problems (like a hot-all-the-time wire to create sparks if the car is in a front end collision?!?! I dunno).

A nice solution might have been a large and fairly bright light (using a back-up-light bulb, for instance, instead of a festoon) with a 2-way or 3-way switch of some sort to turn on. Hit the switch one way, it would illuminate until turned off. Hit switch another way, it would turn itself off after a while-say 15 minutes-whether hood is open or closed. Done like that it could even be sold as a dealer-installed accessory across several models and it would not need an internal tilt switch of any sort.

Albertj

Eldo wrote:

The exact plastic lamp that they mounted in the lid instead of the back of the trunk like they should have in the first place...

Combination stupidity: They use a lever-switch on the latch instead of a traditional tilt-switch socket, allowing them to place the actual bulb anywhere they want, then they plop it right in the lid anyway. Furthermore, that lever-switch provides a ready-made source for a Trunk Ajar light, but they left a blank space in the dash next to the Door Ajar light...

I did the following with a Subaru I owned: wired a piezo chime (radio shack 273-071) and a relay such that the relay would ground its switched lead if the accessory power was on. Connected the switched lead for the trunk light to the (+) side of the chime and the (-) side to that switched relay lead, with a diode to protect the circuit (to allow current flow only from the light to the piezo). So if the car was *on* and the trunk was ajar the chime would sound. If car was off, no sound if trunk ajar.

Have not felt compelled to try that on the Riv.

What I *have" thought about doing is running a lead from the trunk light to under the rear window shelf, then installing a "slave" LED light to illuminate the forward trunk cavity. Something like one of these:

http://www.sourcingmap.com/leds-auto-car-interior-domedoorbox-lamp-bulb-12v-white-light-p-34605.html

Need to look under that shelf to see what can be mounted. Running the wire won't be a big deal, just need to remember to put a barrel or space connector in the line to make it easy to disconnect for whatever reason.

Albertj

Thanks for all your input.
This is all just busy work as I'm not under the hood all that much in the dark and during the day for long jobs i have a long portable fluorescent drop-light that does the trick.
But always looking for easy to do upgrades and when Mark (Eldo) mentioned that a bulb change was almost the equivalent of a drop-light it got me thinking.
Speaking of using back-up bulbs, has anyone change out there backup bulbs to an LED or something else that provides more lumens.
I don't think my stock bulbs are good enough.
Any suggestions.

albertj wrote:

Eldo wrote:

The exact plastic lamp that they mounted in the lid instead of the back of the trunk like they should have in the first place...

Combination stupidity: They use a lever-switch on the latch instead of a traditional tilt-switch socket, allowing them to place the actual bulb anywhere they want, then they plop it right in the lid anyway. Furthermore, that lever-switch provides a ready-made source for a Trunk Ajar light, but they left a blank space in the dash next to the Door Ajar light...

I did the following with a Subaru I owned: wired a piezo chime (radio shack 273-071) and a relay such that the relay would ground its switched lead if the accessory power was on. Connected the switched lead for the trunk light to the (+) side of the chime and the (-) side to that switched relay lead, with a diode to protect the circuit (to allow current flow only from the light to the piezo). So if the car was *on* and the trunk was ajar the chime would sound. If car was off, no sound if trunk ajar.

Have not felt compelled to try that on the Riv.

Albertj

I have a bad habit of leaving the Sunroof open, not just in the Summer.
Always wanted a chime to remind me that it wasn't closed after removing the keys.
I'll have to look into that for my sunroof.
As far as the trunk, I agree, I've never felt the need to give me a chime if leave the trunk open. I have left the trunk unlocked, open but all the way down, for over 200 miles on a trip once and it never wanted to pop up the whole time.
Only reason I knew it was left 'open" was when i got to my location and went to get my luggage out, it was very easy.

After Albert's commentary about the uphill parking scenario, I'd say that the best idea would be to wire the hood light to something that's hot on Ign & Accessory, instead of full time... Leaving the key rolled back to ACC wouldn't be a drain or an inconvenience while under the hood.

Rick: Everything I've seen about LED's for exterior lamps suggests that they either have less output or else cost a fortune. They do make halogen backup bulbs, though. They're not "2.5 times brighter" like they claim, but they are brighter, and I haven't had a melted lens (knock wood...)

Eldo wrote:

After Albert's commentary about the uphill parking scenario, I'd say that the best idea would be to wire the hood light to something that's hot on Ign & Accessory, instead of full time... Leaving the key rolled back to ACC wouldn't be a drain or an inconvenience while under the hood.

Rick: Everything I've seen about LED's for exterior lamps suggests that they either have less output or else cost a fortune. They do make halogen backup bulbs, though. They're not "2.5 times brighter" like they claim, but they are brighter, and I haven't had a melted lens (knock wood...)

I agree with wiring the underhood light with the Access. position, and
So you are using these halogen back up Lamps?
Where did you buy them from.