We suspect there are a few owners of these attractive trucks who have seen the back side of this interesting, well-designed ignition switch.

These were given much extra tooling just so the light surrounding the round key cylinder could be seen by the driver at night or in a dark garage. The driver only needed to turn on the park lights (near the door) to see the circle of light around the key cylinder and thus where to put his ignition key.

Here is how they were designed:

The extra half-round extension on the top of the housing secures a small light bulb socket. The light from this bulb is then brought down into the main “housing tunnel” to reach the key cylinder. A small piece of non-metal material (this small piece of custom-stamped material seems to have shrunk over the years, dropped to the truck floor, was not recognized by the driver, and was swept out of the cab with the dirt!) on the front covers the light so it can only enter a slotted vertical opening in this material. This forces the light down into a special “horizontal tunnel” hole in the housing. (See photo)

Next comes the large, round, flat stainless steel nut that threads around the housing. It secures the assembly into the dash. It is designed to thread down beyond the key cylinder. Thus, the light continues to be seen by the driver, so the ignition key finds its place.

Now it gets more interesting. The light passes through the short tunnel and exits around the space between the key cylinder and the die-cast housing. You then have a round light surrounding this key cylinder.

All of this is to bypass the large sheet metal hole made in the dash for the switch to pass. Imagine the engineering this required so the driver could see where to place the ignition key in the dark!

  1. Light connection.
  2. Non-metal insert.
  3. Tunnel hole.
  4. Light round space between housing and key cylinder.

Securing nut threads down beyond the top of the key cylinder to expose round night light.

Rear connection.