Maplight for 1958-1960 Thunderbird Convertible

This can also be used as a custom modification for your 1958-1960 Hardtop.

I found that the dome light of my Golde Top was too far back to be a useful maplight, so I decided to put in an item that was only available on the convertible in those years - an under dash maplight. The metal panels for the convertible maplight are hard to come by, so the solution is to make one out the solid panel that comes with the hard top. This article provides the dimensions that you can make your own. The maplight , switch and wiring are easy to get, as they were standard on the 1961-1963 Thunderbird, though the panel they are mounted is different than the 1958-60.

Finished 1958-60 maplight panel

Underside of finished panel.

Yellow wire connects to dome light wiring - terminal on left underside of light switch nearest dash - black-blue band wire.
Black wire with blue terminal connects with battery terminal of ignition switch - put a a 7.5 SFE fuse or equivalent inline.

Template for cutting the panel to make a maplight.

For a printable template in PDF form click here.

You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free download, to read this template file. Print it out and align the four mounting holes, then trace out where the holes and cutouts need to be. The printed image will be larger than a letter page. When your printer asks, " the image is larger than the printable area, do you want to proceed?", answer yes. Do not scale the image.

To get a free download of the Adobe Acrobat Reader, go to www.adobe.com .