Adding Cornering Lamps To My 70
 

I've had them laying here for a while now and figure it's about time to put them on. A couple questions though. My car does not have the headlamp harness with the cornering lamp wires. Is there a way to tap into my headlamp harnesses at the bulkhead connector, so I don't have to replace the whole harness ? In the upper right on the attached picture, I think I know which 2 spots the wires go to, the 2 way on the right with the dashed lines going to them.

The other question pertains to figuring out exactly where to cut the fenders to mount them. Anyone have any insight on this ? I made a template that I think is acceptable, now just have to figure out the placement of it.

Attachment 587024

Doing a little more digging on this. Is it correct that I also have to change the turn signal switch ? Is there anything else I have to change beside the front lamp harness and the directional signal switch ? Thanks for any help !

I've had this piece of a fender from a '69 SJ hanging on a nail for 30 years, just so I could locate lights to other fenders if I ever needed to.

I made a few quick measurements, maybe this can help you locate yours. Sorry the bottom of the pics got cut off, the lower measurements are from the sharp crease at the bottom of the fender, not the edge of the metal. The 3-1/2'' distance at the front is from the point, straight back to the front edge of the cutout.

The dimensions for the cutout are to the corners, the lower front is curved, just draw imaginary lines until they meet. The upper right corner is slightly more than 90 degrees, so the rear edge is not exactly square. You might be able to use your light for reference.

fairly sure I have a nice front harness off a 70 SJ I had with side lights, still

Scott

You will need a different harness in your steering column. Will try to get you a pic this weekend
Steve

Thanks a lot for this info, it will be a great help !!

I will keep that in mind, I'm not sure which route I'm going yet. Thanks for letting me know !

Are you saying I will also need a new harness that the directional switch wiring plugs into at the base of the steering column ? Does that one run to the fuse box then ? Also, would you know if this harness is available anywhere ? Sorry, I'm not much of a wiring guy at all.... Thanks for your help, I'm afraid I'm gonna need it !! Lol

I just saw this by chance, but when I went to pick up my GTO from the shop I noticed that they had a parts car that was a 69/70 GP and it had the cornering lamps in the fender. May have a harness if you need it.

IIRC there was a special turn signal switch for the Cornering Lights

https://secure.amesperf.com/qilan/De...A&web_access=Y

Yes, you are correct. I have ordered the turn signal switch made for the cornering lamps. It has an extra 3 wires in the plug. Now my concern is if the wiring harness that the turn signal switch plugs into at the base of the steering column would also need to be changed, or does that harness have the extra 3 wires already in it ? I appreciate your input !

This is very helpful information ! The worst part of this little project is that I don't know what I don't know, lol. I'm not sure if there's another harness under the dash that goes up to the base of the steering column that the directional switch plus into that also needs changing ? Or if it's just the turn signal switch and the headlamp harness in the engine compartment that needs changing ? I very much appreciate your help !! Thanks

The photos below were pulled from the '70 Service Manual. If you have a copy its in the Chassis Electric chapter (12)
Doesn't appear to be a separate harness..

I checked two dash harnesses I have out of 69 GP's. One is a SJ harness with cornering lights and the other a J without cornering lights. Both have a plug with three wires-brown,black and orange labeled A B C.
This is the plug that would go on the clip for the cornering lights.
First pic shows switch harness for cornering lights in the foreground and regular switch behind it. Second and third show the plug to use
Steve

Thank you so much for your effort. I appreciate it very much !! That makes my day that I won't have to find a different harness under the dash !

I am forever grateful to you for this information ! I am very happy that I don't have to goof around with changing any other harnesses under the dash. There's sure a great group of guys on here, is all I can say . Thanks again for all your efforts !!

Well, I ran across another hurdle over the past couple days and am posting this as an FYI to the next guy that would decide to add these cornering lights to their GP J. I made an assumption (yes, I know the saying about assume) that the '69 and '70 Grand Prix SJ's used the same headlamp harness with the cornering lamp terminals on them. I bought a used harness from a '69 SJ to use on my '70 J and when I looked closer at the harness plug that goes into the bulkhead, I noticed that one of the terminals in the plug was missing from the location it was supposed to be according to my '70 Pontiac Service Manual. Terminals used for the cornering lamp option on the '70 are in location BS & DS. The plug on the '69 harness did not even have a tab at location BS. I found a 1969 Pontiac Service Manual pdf online and found that the cornering lamp terminals were in location CT & CU on the '69 harness. A quick continuity check confirmed this, so the '69 harness is a no go. All the other connections in the plug are in a different location too. The seller was nice enough to take it back and I can get a new harness from Ames or M&H, so it's just a bump in the road. But I just am posting this to possibly save someone else the grief if they do a search on this subject.

The dash harness was the same with and without the cornering light option but you do need the specific turn signal switch. However, I’ve seen many non cornering light cars where the extra connector for the turn signal switch has been chopped off by the factory during install. If you run into this you can always fab a connector yourself and splice it in to the harness.

Also, for the forward lamp harness you can keep your original and simply fab two new wires (lots of Packard connector kits on eBay). Just insert them into the harness bulkhead connector in the appropriate holes (as per the shop manual) by carefully removing the seam sealer in those holes.

Extra point to watch is to sand or grind bare the inner fender surface around the bezel mounting bolts as they require body grounding to function.

Thank you for your helpful info. I just want to make sure that this pertains to dash harnesses on the 70 GP's specifically, if they were the same with or without the corner light option on the 70 GP ? Just want to make sure that even if they snipped the connector, that I'll at least have the wires in the dash harness to splice into. I'm a little worried that maybe just the 69's had the same dash harness ? Thanks again for everything !

Good point about 70 vs 69. Easy enough to check though, two ways…

First have a look at the dash harness on your car and look for the second connector with three wires right next to the main connector above the column that plugs into the main connector on the lower side of the steering column.

Secondly, if you can’t access the car just look at a 70-71 vintage MPC (factory parts catalogue) and see if they list dash harnesses with or without cornering lamps.

Funny tidbit, I’ve noticed that 68-69 GTO’s with hideaways all have the cornering lamp wires in the forward lamp harness (even on cars without cornering lamps installed) but non hideaway cars without cornering lamps do not have those wires in the forward harness. I guess they were compromising between not putting unnecessary cost into all cars and limiting part number proliferation?

Dang. Unfortunately, I don't have the car here to check and I don't have a 1970 or 71 Master Parts Catalog. I guess my options are to wait till I can get under the dash to look or if someone on here that has the catalog could look it up for me or I will have to find a catalog to purchase.

I have a November 69 MPC so it has 1970 numbers but they are not bulletproof like say the early 1970 printing where they would have firmed up things for the new model year. I'll have a look and get back to you. btw if they were missing its a pretty easy add to install them, basically one wire from the headlight switch for power to the parking lights to the column connector than two wires from the column connector to the corresponding plug holes on the bulkhead behind the fuseblock, don't need to change the dash harness, they are very expensive and hard to replace without pulling the whole dash which is a job and a half on a GP especially.

Reviving a thread I started 3 1/2 years ago. Thanks to all the help that I received on here, I finally got my car into the body shop 6 months ago and had the cornering lamps installed and my car painted. They put my new headlight harness with the extra connections for the cornering lamps in while they had the front bumper removed. I had already changed out my directional switch last year to the one with the extra 3 posts also required for the cornering lamp option. The cornering lamps work great and I like how they look on the car too. I just.got the car back from getting the new vinyl roof and I took a few pictures. It has to go back to the paint shop tomorrow to get the back window,and package tray installed and the trunk spatter painted.

Beautiful! You must be really happy with that!

Glad it worked out! Btw, the outer portion of the cornering light bezel (there is a raised bead to mark the masking line) is supposed to be painted body color. This reduces the visual size of the chrome edge.

Found this picture online. Paint covers the part of the bezel outboard of the raised bead.

Here is a closeup of an original paint Bonneville I have. The Fullsized car cornering lamp is a slightly different shape but the painting protocol is the same as for the GP.

Sorry for the #%&@! upside down photo

Thank you a lot for all your help! I know the outside part is supposed to be body color, but I'm gonna be sending the bezels out for rechroming first. There are a couple small spots where they are blistering, so I that is first on my list of things to do. I wonder how they get the paint to stick to the chrome surface? They must have to etch it with something, I imagine.

That’s a good question, the factory seemed to have a solution because I have several original paint cars with paint over chrome parts (tail light bezels etc) and they are free of any major peeling.

They probably used a vinyl wash primer. No sign of any sanding or the like on any of my untouched ones.

When I have repainted them I mask off the area not to be painted and then scuff them as a precaution. Worked pretty good so far

Good to know. These bezels had probably a third of the paint left loose or got chipped off somehow. They were that way when I bought them. They were maybe on a shelf and not treated with the best of care, who knows. I'll have to do a little research I guess. As long as I'm asking questions, here's a couple more. Were the grill inserts were painted black, maybe semi gloss or thereabouts, except for the very front edge, which stays polished like chrome? And the vinyl top trim is supposed to be black also? Flat or semi gloss?

I don’t know what the 70 grills are supposed to look like. As for the vinyl top moldings they had the inward half painted a satin type thin paint to match the vinyl top color.

The 69 vinyl top cars had a textured and painted rear glass moldings but in 70 I believe the used the standard chrome ones.

Yes, my 69 GP has textured painted black rear window trim to match the black vinyl roof. Its just a parts car now but they are still there. The rear window trim on my 70 is either stainless steel or chrome.