Driver door bulb

[DaemonForce]

No, I'm not kidding. I just finished restoring my driver side door hinges and the latch. As I grabbed the door skin I look at the bolted reflector and thought to myself once again, it would make an interesting safety feature if it were a light instead of a simple reflector. Upon closer examination, I notice two bolts and a locking nut securing the reflector to the door skin. Why would it need such security?

Curious, I unscrewed it with a 10mm and THIS is what I find:


I can't believe American actually thought of something that I have never seen on any other car. This isn't like a talking car that says "The door is ajar" but rather a practical and luxurious chrome plated bulb that visually alerts oncoming drivers whenever the driver door of an AMC is open in less than favorable lighting conditions.

However, this is not what I find fascinating so much as the condition of this device against every form of evidence that does not document its existence. I'll be specific: This device is in three pieces: The shell, the bulb and the hollow screw. I only found one bulb wire grounded at the end of the screw. It's a common hack on any vehicle to complete a circuit with a hot wire going into a circuit and quickly completing it with a ground screw. That much I understand but in that case, where is the hot wire?

I realize ONE wire bolted to a doorskin would make it painful when trying to replace door handles or speakers but if this bulb was intended to be functional, wouldn't I find an imperative hot wire somewhere on the door itself? Does it have a fuse or splice into another device? How does this mechanism know when to activate/deactivate if it isn't part of the pressure switch between the door and body? I would love to hear this. Especially from anyone that actually has ever had a functional door light on their Eagle.

[eagleman]

Thats interesting. I don't have a clue but signed on in hopes of finding out. Can't wait to hear the answers myself.

[mechanic80]

Interesting.  I'm thinkin' it could be wired like the dome lamp circuit is.  A ground is completed with the door jamb switch when the door is opened, right?

[DaemonForce]

That would have to be the case or this light would simply be on all the time(or whenever ext lights come on). The only other lamp on these cars that has a less than ordinary circuit is the hood. This more than likely wires into the door jamb switch and illuminates the bulb along with the rest of the common interior circuits. The other thing that bothers me is how much voltage is actually supposed to go to this? There's no documentation this exists, I can't find an associated hotwire that was ever present and one of the bulb legs are gone so I don't really have any way of testing this. I'm not the first to pull the door skin off because of a problem and the circuitry probably disappeared long before I owned the car.

[mudkicker715]

I am and have been curious. i never saw this on any eagle. what year?

[mechanic80]

I'm pretty sure I recognize the bulb type.  It's a 12V piece. Had that in the glove box of my Cressida. 

[DaemonForce]

I am and have been curious. i never saw this on any eagle. what year?

This is on my 83 Limited. Curiously enough, I've never seen this on any other vehicle. The Concord and Hornet I parted out didn't have this fitting on the doorskin. If I go to Portland and check out the 81 sitting in the lot, it probably won't be there either. For identification purposes it appears to only exist on Limited models. Oddly, the shape of this light is reminiscent of the days when cars were HUGE and had giant bug-eyed exterior rocket lamps. The weirdness is in the fact that it's now an internal door piece. Also, I recently discovered that the orange casing can be unscrewed counterclockwise to swap with a new casing and maybe with other colors. It's very odd.

[IowaEagle]

I have never seen anything like that on any AMC car before.  More info please.

[mechanic80]

If you go back a few(!) years, those were sold as license plate "bullets."  Warshawsky's, aka J.C.Whitney had them, and yes the lenses were changeable.  Green, blue and I think red.  Is the lens plastic or glass?  The older ones were glass.

[WoodenBirdOfPrey]

If I had to guess, I would propose that maybe that was a modification done by a previous owner.  If AMC were to illuminate it from the factory, why would they use an external-type light assembly with an amber lens, when it's going to be illuminating a red lens?  To me it just makes sense that the bullet light was readily available to whoever made the modification.

[DaemonForce]

I have never seen anything like that on any AMC car before.  More info please.

I'm not really sure what to say. I've seen snapshots of other drivers with an Eagle Limited of varying doorskin options but the only thing I ever saw close to this was something that looked like a remote mirror adjustment. Not sure if that's factory and this is some sort of aftermarket way to cover a gaping hole or a factory way of adding/subtracting said option. Either way it looks like it belongs there. I can only assume AMC did this for aesthetics.

The doorskin interior:


Wall side:


I live in a weird part of the state where I don't see any AMCs other than a blue/gray 83 Eagle wagon and some tan/rusted Pacer that are run in town once every blue moon. I'm the only one that drives an AMC as a daily vehicle within a three county radius and that makes it very difficult to compare to others. I just assumed that all Eagles had some variation like this.

If you go back a few(!) years, those were sold as license plate "bullets."  Warshawsky's, aka J.C.Whitney had them, and yes the lenses were changeable.  Green, blue and I think red.  Is the lens plastic or glass?  The older ones were glass.

I knew I've seen something like this before but is this it? A license plate bullet? The lens is thick but definitely plastic. If by older you mean factory, I still don't know what to think.

[WoodenBirdOfPrey]

Seeing that, i'm even more inclined to say it was the work of a previous owner. Either a remote mirror was replaced with a standard one and the light was used as a filler, or the car was originally non-remote and the door panel was replaced.

[DaemonForce]

Seeing that, i'm even more inclined to say it was the work of a previous owner. Either a remote mirror was replaced with a standard one and the light was used as a filler, or the car was originally non-remote and the door panel was replaced.

One of the previous owners had problems with both mirrors. To the point where the driver side mirror was replaced with an aftermarket manual mirror that really doesn't look like it belongs on this car. So this is just an aftermarket filler for a mirror control? Good enough for me. I intend to replace the current mirrors with manual ones from a Hornet so I guess everything works out.

[shanebo]

Stock or not its still pretty cool!