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I have spent way more time and money on this than I want to discuss, but I have a question about dome light wiring. My old (broken) dome light had two wires going to it. From what I can tell, one came from the door switches and the other from the console courtesy switch. There are two terminals on the light assembly. I assume, one wire goes to each terminal with ground being achieved by grounding the base of the light assembly (correct?).

Anyway, I bought a new generic assembly from the auto parts store. It has two wires coming into the housing (one hot & one ground). Can I just twist the two feeds from the switches together and attach them to the hot wire on the new assembly or will bad things happen. I'm not as good with circuits as I used to be.
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Somebody correct me if i'm wrong. The two wires from your old light are 1 hot, 1 ground. The base of the light assembly is not grounded. The hot +12V wire to the light is constant power and the light is turned on by the door switch or the courtesy switch by completing the ground circuit. If you twist the two wires from the switches and attach them to hot BAD things will happen.
Well, thanks to the magic of JB Weld, I was able to repair my old light assembly. And you are all correct, the wires are hot and ground. What threw me (and is still throwing me), is that now, the light works with the courtesy light switch in the dash, but not with the door switches. The red lights at the end of the doors do work with the door switches. I am now thinking that there is an additional wire hiding somewhere that I forgot to hook up. Any insight would be appreciated.
On my 71, the red wire goes from the fuse panel to each of the 3 lights (dome & 2 door lights). This is the hot wire. There is a black wire that connects to the other terminal at each of these three lights that goes to the door switches & the courtesy light switch. This means that the switches complete the circuit to ground. Have you checked the bulbs in the door lights? Corrosion at bulb sockets?
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