Now this is bizarre! The dome light in my 85 does not light up, but it does cause a high-pitched, low volume electronic squeal when turned on. The noise is coming from somewhere else, not the light itself. Looks like somebody messed up the wiring somewhere. I presume the dome light is suppposed to be fed from the fuse block and grounded by the door switches to turn it on. It appears that someone mixed up the wiring, and the dome light is now being fed through some other device that produces the noise and prevents enough current from reaching the bulb to make it actually light up.

Short of tearing out the headliner to trace the dome light wire, where should I start looking for the connection points?

 

Take the bulb out and see if it stops. Do you know what the warning buzzer for the rev limiter sounds like? Maybe its wired in to that. I don't remember my car has a noise it makes if you shut the car off with the lights on or leave the key in the ignition, so I'm not sure what else it could be wired into. Check to see if its coming from your speakers.
Good luck chasing that gremlin

 

Hey Project, welcome back!

 

the lamp and the buzzer are connected to and controlled by a "computer" under the driver's side storage bin. Your car's problem is more than likely caused by a corroded pin in the plug connection to that "computer". I had to clean one of the pin when my car had the same exact problem.

dennis

 

ever thought about asking it nicely to be quiet?

 

With the bulb removed there is no sound, so whatever is squealing is feeling the electrical load imposed by sending current to ground through the bulb.

The sound is very faint - not like a warning buzzer.

I'll pull out the storage compartment as suggested and see if I can find anything out of order there. Thanks for the tip on that.

 

There are sometimes things in this world that have no other purpose but to annoy the **** out of someone.

 

Maybe a baby mouse has eaten into the wiring. Every time you turn on the dome light.......it is screaming in pain.

 

The lights on, and keys warning alarm is a ' chime' .
does the light, light up on the steering colum ? (for keys)
sometimes the plungers on the doors needs to be cleaned (contacts)

 

Ya I had that in my '85

It turned out that one of the factory rivited wires had broken losse on the clip that holds the light bulb in place. Caused a short in all of the interior lights except the one on the sterring coloumn.

So here is what I did...

I carfuly removed the dome light assembly (the mior come down too) I found the broken wire, tool a papper clip straightened it out and bent a very short right angel then insetred it throught the hole in the bulbe clip and through the frame assembly and then sloderred the right angle to the bulb clip, a,d on the other sied slodered the broken wire to the paper clip. trimed it to keep it from sticking out too much reinstalled the whole thing, and it worked like a charm.

No more buzz and all the lights started working.

Hope this helps

Good luck

anthrax