Chevrolet Cab 11 Instrument Lights

[Bob Carriere]

It was the earliest C8 cab 11 I have encountered. Totally rusted out BUT the interior silk screen labelling of the switches was still readable.

The first one is labelled "HEATER" followed by "PLATE" ad to the far right "PANEL"....... only the PANEL light is a on off on switch ........ there are NO additional instrument lights that I could see..... now the cowl section above the switches and custer contains the same arrangment as my cab 11 C15a....remember the initial GM production of cab 11 was started with 2 wheel drive C8 only.....so my cab 11 4x4 was produced later in the Summer of 1940.

My switches tags were different and identical to the switch tags shown by Owen..... and this is how I wired my cab 11...... the instrument switch turns on two instrument lights andthe hi-beam big stump switch on the cowl turns on a little red light.

I cannot say categorically that what I had and is now restored is accurate.

One word of caution..... during my rewiring using a hand made loom from Phil Waterman and he used all the correct gauge and color pattern as per the shop manual I ran into technical difficulties. The NOS switches I had purchased with original waxed wrapping were all heavily oxidized with a white powder an the contacts were sometimes working sometimes not. I kept them for posterity and replaced all 3 switches with "made in China" ....$2.99) Princess Auto switches which came with a little ball ends on the switches. To this date they are still working fine. I did have to do some dentistry since orientation of the on / off was reversed but was an easy fix.....and matched the wiring diagram that I was following in the manual.

Will dig up a close up of my restored dash...... all was converted to 12 v. by the way....... all instruments work with voltage reducers.

Good luck Owen.