Headlight warning chime

If there is one thing that bugs me about the key-in buzzer in an A-Body is the fact that it buzzes even when the car is running and the door is open. But what I want even more is for a warning if I turn the car off with the headlights on.

About 4.5 years ago someone asked the question about if a chime could be used to replace the key-in buzzer used in A-Bodies:

Key buzzer to chime

This question prompted me to look into this some, leading me to discover that certain years of Ram trucks used a chime module that also covered the seat-belt and headlight warning sound.

Below is a clip from a '95 Ram service manual. Here is a link to a thread about removing the buzzer/chime - Want to get rid of that annoying door/key/light buzzer? look here :) - Dodge Cummins Diesel Forum (hope the pictures show up).

Note that in the above thread the 95, 97-98 Ram used a chime, but the 96 used a buzzer. FYI



Here is a link to a chime with the same numbers as the one I grabbed. Looks like they were used in GM vehicles as well as Jeeps, so they should be easy to find.

Based on my ’74 Duster wire diagram, the buzzer receives power and is grounded via the seatbelt interlock and/or door switch when the key is in the ignition.

This means that in order to wire in a chime from a Ram and make it function, it appears that the following would need to happen:


The above would recreate the current functionality with a chime rather than a buzzer.

For the additional functionality (headlight warning) that I want, the below would be added:



The above additional functionality would need to go hand in hand or the chime would happen any time the headlights are on which would make driving at night a bear. By telling the module that the car is running by feeding it power off the ignition circuit, it should silence the chime both when the door is open and when the headlights are on and the car is running.

The missing piece of the puzzle was how to tell the module the headlights are on.

This was where I left it 4.5 years ago.

I am in the process of fixing some wiring issues and have my dash harness out of the car and am planning on stripping the seatbelt interlock wiring out of the harness. Yesterday it occurred to me that maybe I should revisit this in case it worked out to add a chime for a headlight warning at the same time.

The missing piece of the puzzle (for me) was how to trigger the headlight warning chime.

So, out of curiosity, I looked up a headlight switch for an F-Body and compared it to an A-Body one.

Here are images of the spades on first an A-Body switch and then an F-Body one:




Notice the additional 2 spades on the bottom right of the F-Body switch. Come to find out, those are connected when the headlight switch is in any position except off. With that connection, a wire from the chime to one spade and to a ground on the other would create the connection needed to tell the chime that the headlight are on.

The F-Body plug is different in the retaining clip locations and the additional 2 spades, but it does appear that the original headlight plug on the A-Body harness should plug into the switch and leave the additional spades open to have wires added without issues. This solves having to track down an F or M Body to get the plug.

Here is a A-Body switch followed by the F-Body switch:




The F-Body switch is physically larger, but the end where it bolts to the IP is the same size. I haven't had a chance to check it against my IP, but I don't think it will be an issue. It really isn't that much larger.

I ended up grabbing an M-Body switch and plug last night so I can say that the M-Body switch is wired and functions the same as the A-Body switch so no issue there. Looks like it should be a simple swap to pull the wires from the A-Body plug and replace them in the M-Body plug. Or just use the original A-Body plug and add a couple of wire to make this almost a slam dunk.

Only issue I can think of so far is the spades on the chime don't appear to be spaced correctly to use any plugs I have available. This means I will have to add some shrink wrap over the female connector on each wire and plug them in one at a time (and in the correct order) to make the connection at the chime. Looks like this chime came in several GM vehicles so maybe I can find a plug there or something.

Either way, I think I can get the headlight warning working.

And just to head off the comment, if you don't want warning sounds, then no reason to comment.

I plan to drive my Duster this summer like I drove my Challenger last year, and just feels better to have a backup in case I drive into town at dusk and forget to check whether or not I turn on my headlights.

Besides, I like the idea of adding simple features and this has the bonus of making the door open with the key-in warning not sound anymore when the car is running.

As a bonus, I am going to free up some space by getting rid of the bulky seatbelt interlock box and have a place to put it.

Folks used to do this "back in the day" when the little ceramic "sonalert" and other inexpensive noise / beeper modules began to appear, import, inexpensive. Just wire the thing with an isolation diode to the key "run" line and to the park/ tail light circuit. The diode will prevent the ignition power from activating the alarm, and when the key is off, the loads on the run line act like a ground for the beeper with power coming from the lighting circuit. Basically, tail light power is what you want as it is no "no matter what" unless switch is off

If you ever end up in CDA give me a buzz and "we'll do lunch"

67Dart273 said:

Folks used to do this "back in the day" when the little ceramic "sonalert" and other inexpensive noise / beeper modules began to appear, import, inexpensive. Just wire the thing with an isolation diode to the key "run" line and to the park/ tail light circuit. The diode will prevent the ignition power from activating the alarm, and when the key is off, the loads on the run line act like a ground for the beeper with power coming from the lighting circuit. Basically, tail light power is what you want as it is no "no matter what" unless switch is off

Click to expand...

Interesting. Never heard of doing something like that.

67Dart273 said:

If you ever end up in CDA give me a buzz and "we'll do lunch"

Click to expand...

Will do!

Several years ago, I built a dozen head light warning units with piezo buzzer that tap into the fuse box in about 5 minutes. 2 hot wires, and a ground wire. Power at inst lamp fuse when park lamps are pulled on starts the buzzer, second power from turn signal or radio fuse at ign. switch on stops the buzzer. Ign. switch off buzzer starts again until lights are turned off.
There was virtually no interest in them so I gave away most of them at cruise ins. I honestly dont know if I have one left here or not. If you dont want to solder tiny electronics to build something as small as a lollipop like I did, here's how to do it with a common relay and a chime or buzzer...
https://www.redarc.com.au/images/uploads/files/wire_a_simple_headlight_alarm.pdf

^^You should be able to do that same thing I was referring to in the pdf you posted, and eliminate relay. Connect the alarm to headlight power, use a series diode, and connect the ground connection of the alarm to ignition feed

I'm guessing that is the way the ones you built worked as well

Looks like a couple of different ways to do it.

With the F-Body headlight switch, could you not also use a relay with the trigger circuit going to ground through the extra contact to power a buzzer?

Only thing I don't see an easy way to do on my setup is to trigger the chime only when the door is open rather than any time the headlights are on and the key off. There is a circuit available, but it would turn the chime on if you turn on the dome light and headlights at the same time using the headlight switch.

Something else I would add is that the way I am doing this keeps the key-in functionality, but also adds the ability to disable the chime when the car is running and the door is open. Yes the headlight warning is the number one reason to do this, but I like that I can keep the key-in warning but without having to listen to the chime/buzzer if I get out of the car to get the mail or something out of the trunk.

Honestly, not sure I would suggest doing it the way I am on a car that doesn't have the seatbelt interlock. So far it looks like I have all the wires I need already in the right area, minus a short wire from the headlight switch to a ground.

RedFish said:

There was virtually no interest in them so I gave away most of them at cruise ins. I honestly dont know if I have one left here or not. If you dont want to solder tiny electronics to build something as small as a lollipop like I did, here's how to do it with a common relay and a chime or buzzer...
https://www.redarc.com.au/images/uploads/files/wire_a_simple_headlight_alarm.pdf

Click to expand...

Seems like several years ago there were two different groups of people; those that really only drove their cars to shows during the day and those that drove their cars because they preferred the simplicity of an old car.

For the show cars, I doubt they used their headlights more than once or twice a year and probably saw no need for something like that.

And the people that drove their cars because they like old cars would probably sneer at the idea of adding a warning.

Add that it seems like 90% of the people with an old car want to rip the buzzer out all together and I can see why interest would have been low. Heck, look at the lack of interest in this thread.

On a side note, I suspect that there is a third group that is growing in size; those that want to drive an old car but with some of the modern features like EFI, OD and such.

For me, I can either drive my car like it was intended to be drive when it was new or I can drive my worn out truck or the winter beater. Since I had the 2015 Challenger and sold it, I've decided I would rather drive my Duster the same way I drove my Challenger and enjoy what I drive for as much as I can. This makes it make some sense (to me) to go through the efforts.

I might add that if I didn't already have the dash harness out of the car, I might not have worried about it.

DionR said:

Seems like several years ago there were two different groups of people; those that really only drove their cars to shows during the day and those that drove their cars because they preferred the simplicity of an old car.
For the show cars, I doubt they used their headlights more than once or twice a year and probably saw no need for something like that.
And the people that drove their cars because they like old cars would probably sneer at the idea of adding a warning.
Add that it seems like 90% of the people with an old car want to rip the buzzer out all together and I can see why interest would have been low. Heck, look at the lack of interest in this thread.
On a side note, I suspect that there is a third group that is growing in size; those that want to drive an old car but with some of the modern features like EFI, OD and such.
For me, I can either drive my car like it was intended to be drive when it was new or I can drive my worn out truck or the winter beater. Since I had the 2015 Challenger and sold it, I've decided I would rather drive my Duster the same way I drove my Challenger and enjoy what I drive for as much as I can. This makes it make some sense (to me) to go through the efforts.
I might add that if I didn't already have the dash harness out of the car, I might not have worried about it.

Click to expand...

Every ones conditions and/or needs are different. No one can predict the weather. I had took my 67 to a all day event over in adjacent county. A mid summer storm came up in afternoon and most everyone gathered their belongings and headed for home. I ran my headlights and wipers and failed to turn the lights off at landing. The storm passed and I caught my error before my battery died but... I had to do a little research into a simple solution. I can properly solder diodes inline, etc.., but I know not every owner is capable. That's why I shared the relay method above. Even though all connections are labeled I suppose their are some number of folks that couldn't do that either. Electric circuitry is not so simple/logical for all, including myself. I'll go ahead and admit that I took a short cut in the unit that I built. I bought something like this... FAKE CAR ALARM LED LIGHT- RED BLINKING THEFT DETERRENT | eBay (although at that time it did have a 3rd wire for ground)
I cut away the LED, replaced with a piezo buzzer and packaged with taps for glass bar fuses, female spade connectors on the wires, printed instructions, etc... I found that there just isn't a market for it regardless how effective, how simple the install is.

I guess I never came back and updated this. Got it working last summer and didn't think about it after that.

I did run into a problem with the headlight switch knob. The F/M-Body headlight switch is deeper than the A-Body one, so the original knob ends up way down in the hole in the IP. Not impossible to get ahold of and pull, but not easy either. So I ended up using the M-Body knob for now. It's different than the original and sticks out further but it works. Not horrible, doesn't stick out like a sore thumb (I don't think), but I notice it so I will probably look for a solution at some point.

Have to say I am please with it. Only real drawback that I can think of is that the chime sounds if the key is off and the headlights are on, door open or not. I wish it didn't chime until I opened the door, but it's not a big deal. Don't have any plans to sit anywhere with the headlights on and the car not running so shouldn't be an issue.

Ugh. As I typed the above post, I was wondering what I could do to fix it so the headlight warning didn't chime until opened the door, so I went back and re-read the thread. I think I screwed it up and could have made it work.

The additional circuit in the headlight switch is just a connection, so (in theory) I should have been able to wire it to the door switch and then it wouldn't have chimed until the door was open. I think I ran it directly to a ground instead. Could have been so simple...

Now I have to look at it again the next time I have the dash apart.

My big issue "used to be" the much hated 95 Olds Cutlass Sierra. I'd turn the manual courtesy switch on to get things "gathered up" when exiting the car in the dark. .......And forget to shut it off......This would not have been an issue in the "simple old days" because I'd immediately notice, when closing the door, that the light was still on. But the delay module keeps the light on after you close the door, so I'd think nothing of it.........this car had no time delay lockout for the manual switch, so it would just sit there all night and run the battery down LOL

This stupid 04 GMC is too much the other way. Everything is so automatic you can't figure out what it's gonna do next. About half the time the door switch doesn't work......even though it's a sensor.

My 70 Swinger had a buzzer, but the wiring melted up. I took it out years ago when replacing the lock cylinder. does anyone make the parts to fix these buzzer systems?

Something like this work?
Car Headlights Warning Buzzer | eBay

RustyRatRod said:

Something like this work?
Car Headlights Warning Buzzer | eBay

Click to expand...

Looks like a close match to the OEM chime I used. Mine came out of a Grand Cherokee, but I found them in Rams and Dakota’s too.

The eBay one has an option to trigger a relay, don’t remember if the chime I used did or not but I don’t think so.

I think I grabbed 4 or 5 of them out of the JY for like $5 total. I think I would go that way rather than mess with the eBay one. But just my opinion.