Sir, you left your lights on.

[Bill Oldham]

Well, thats something I do all to regularly. With the optima, its not cost me a dead battery yet, but its only a matter of time. So in thinking about solutions, I found one that I believe is worth sharing. By simply moving two wires a few inches under the dash you can have the headlights go off with the ignition switch, but be available if you want them with the ignition switch in the "radio" or 'accessory" position. This is for T5 and T6 cars; I do not have earlier wiring diagrams to see if they are similar in wiring.
First, I do not recommend this if you do not use headlight relays; add them first to save not only the headlight switch but also the dimmer switch and you get brighter lights in the bargain. With this mod the headlight relay current will be going through the ignition switch as well; that is why its a bad idea to do without headlight relays; you only need to look at the internal contacts on your ignition and light switches to convince you that relays are a good idea.
Here is what you do:
1) disconnect battery for safety
2) the ignition switch has 3 terminals on one side labeled "30" (see diagram). One thick red wire (coming from the light switch, albeit indirectly, thru the harness) is the only thing plugged in there originally. There may be more accessories now, because this is a 6 (or 12)V always-hot supply. Unplug this wire and plug it instead to the opposite side, terminal 54 (the accessories, or radio side) There are 3 holes here, see diagram. If you do not have a radio they are probably all vacant. You can see if you moved the right wire because if you reconnect the battery, the only live 6v (or12) on the back of the ignition switch is now moved to terminals 54. (but disconnect the battery again).
3) Now you have to move one more wire:
there are 3 wires connected to the 3 terminals "30" of the light switch (red wires). One of them goes to the signal dimmer switch (i.e. to the steering wheel switch), one of them goes to the ignition switch (in fact it is the other end of the wire you just moved in step 2). The third wire into terminals "30" on the light switch is a red wire going to the top of fuse 2 (or 3 or 4) which in tern goes directly to the battery.
Unplug this wire from the ignition switch, and plug it into the empty spot (terminal 30) you created on the ignition switch in step 2. To be sure its the right wire, reconnect the battery and see if terminal 30 on the ignition switch is always hot, whereas terminal 30 on the light switch is hot only when the ignition is on auxiliary or run.

Thats it ... an easily reversible modification that will keep you from draining your battery by leaving your lights on. You should document this and all changes neatly on a paper you keep with the car papers so future owners have a chance to figure out what you did. I suspect that Porsche chose not to wire this way simply because they did not want the headlight current going through the ignition switch (which they already had compromised by running the starter solenoid current through).

[Sterling Vaden]

Thanks Bill, what a great idea!

I also emphatically agree to install the headlight relays first. The current path for the headlights now passes through the ignition switch contacts instead of just using the ignition switch as a convenient buss bar.

BTW this will also work on 912 ignition/headlight switches.

[Bruce Coen]

A while back, someone came up with an easy way to add a headlight warning buzzer to any 356 whether it has headlight relays or not. They were even offering kits that contained the needed hardware and installation instructions. I've used the Search feature but haven't been able find any of the 356Talk posts related to this. If there is any interest, I could make up a few more of the kits.

[Dave Wildrick]

A while back, someone came up with an easy way to add a headlight warning buzzer to any 356 whether it has headlight relays or not. They were even offering kits that contained the needed hardware and installation instructions. I've used the Search feature but haven't been able find any of the 356Talk posts related to this. If there is any interest, I could make up a few more of the kits.

I have not tried this, but FWIW here's a note from my saved 356talk posts from Mike Robbins:
[From: mike robbins <robbinsroost@att.net>
Subject: Re: [356Talk] Headlight Warning Buzzer

The buzzer I bought at Radio Shack has a red wire and a black wire. Put the
red wire on the bottom of the 7th fuse from the right and the black wire on the fuse
at the right end.
Mike]

[Ken Wallace]

hasn't been posted for a while so just in case anyone needs it:


Today, I went to Radio Shack and bought Cat. No. 273-060, piezio buzzer, 4-28 volts DC, 3.5 khz. I put the black wire at the top of fuse #1 which is switched ignition and the red wire at the top of fuse #8 which is the parking lights. I used a little mounting tape to mount the buzzer to the bulkhead above the fuse block.



If the ignition and the lights are both on, both sides of the buzzer are at the same voltage and it is silent.



If the ignition and the lights are both off, both sides of the buzzer are at the same voltage and it is silent.



If the ignition is on and the lights are off, the buzzer is a reverse biased diode, no current flows and it is silent.



BUT, if some dummy leaves the lights on and the ignition is off, it beeps to remind me to turn the lights off.



Bruce Coen

'59 Coupe #105158

'56 Cabriolet #61066

[Randy Mittelstet]

I came across this and thought it was a great tip to avoid leaving your lights on when using in daytime. I like to do that now that I have the SMD headlights.
I got the Radio Shack buzzer with the diode just to be sure part number is 2730059 76dB Piezo Buzzer.

I tried every fuse combination suggested but nothing worked with fuse #1. So I played around with different combinations and finally found the right one, for my car anyway. It senses both the parking lights on as well as the headlights. I put the black wire on top of #12 fuse which is at the very end going to the right toward passenger door. The red wire is on the bottom of fuse # 5 going to the right. The fuse box numbers go left to right as you are looking at the fuse box #1 through #12. Maybe this will save someone some time. That buzzer is just right regarding volume and sound and yes, Radio Shack still ships online.

[Phil Planck]

I bought one of those years ago from Mike Robbins. Have yet to install it.

[Bill Oldham]

Again, why add a buzzer? My post of Aug 9 2011 in this same topic explains how to move one wire and presto, your lights go off with ignition off. Of course you really should use the readily available headlight relay to save your switches ( buy from Bill Block)

[Randy Mittelstet]

the reason I'm going the buzzer route is it's much simpler. I've learned the hard way on these old cars not to disturb "things" anymore than is necessary particularly electrical.
Pulling and moving ignition wiring for me in that small space for me anyway is scary. The buzzer for me is a much easier process. Thanks for the reminder on the headlight relay.

[Martin Bruechle]

This is a carry-over from olden days when people tied pieces of cloth around any painful part of their body.

This cloth was tied in one area to keep the “spirit of life” in that area, and so cure it and keep the pain from spreading to other parts of the body. The string on the finger was designed to “keep” the thought there, to be remembered later when it was needed.

It's a little known fact that the nerves that define your sense of touch on your index fingers are the ones with the quickest connections routed directly to the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory. Tying a ribbon around the index finger means you constantly have a texture that's activating those nerves and thus keeping that part of the brain in alpha (high activity) mode. If you tie the ribbon (or wear a ring on your index finger, or any such apparatus) at the very moment you are trying to memorize something you mustn't forget later on, it associates that brain activity with said memory, keeping that pathway almost exclusively as a conduit for that memory.
That tying a knot on your fingers improves remembering things seems like a reasonable claim to me as a memory technique, since it is something unusual which you normally don't do unless you have something you want to recall later; but is it more effective compared to other arbitrary memory technique, say, drawing an "X" in the palm, or tying the leg, putting a pen in the breast pocket, etc.

[Martin Bruechle]

Just kidding Bill.

[Wes Bender]

I can only think of one possible safety drawback for Bill's idea. If you were driving at night and for some reason the contact in the ignition switch failed (or somebody switched the ignition off), you would lose both your engine and the lights. Depending on the speed at the time, it could get pretty dicey. That same failure with the stock wiring would only kill the engine. It would be a very unusual thing for that part of the ignition switch to fail though. Most failures with the ignition switch are the starting contacts.

If you DO decide to make the modification, do the next owner a favor and put a note in the car records to indicate what you did.