What is this?

[wjburken]

So we were swapping parts off of a 1996 Silverado onto my sons 1997 Cheyenne and I noticed this mounted to the firewall of the 1996 truck. I have never seen anything like it before. Any idea what it is? It looks to have a light bulb in the glass dome and the round portion actually spins.

 

[Jason in DLH]

Just an under hood retractable light.

 

[Jason in DLH]

Truth be told...I used the powers of Google Photos app that has the ability to scan your images and cross reference the billions of images on the web. I had never seen it before either.

 

[wjburken]

Just an under hood retractable light.

Like a drop light?

 

[Jason in DLH]

Yes,sir.

 

[Jason in DLH]

It looks ancient.

 

[Doubeleive]

ya gm used to put them on trucks but they got cheap they had them there and some were mounted under the hood, you pull just pull it out use it to see wherever you need to

 

[swathdiver]

So we were swapping parts off of a 1996 Silverado onto my sons 1997 Cheyenne and I noticed this mounted to the firewall of the 1996 truck. I have never seen anything like it before. Any idea what it is? It looks to have a light bulb in the glass dome and the round portion actually spins.

View attachment 274712 View attachment 274713

Pretty cool Wade, does it still work?

 

[wjburken]

Pretty cool Wade, does it still work?

Don’t know. The truck it’s on is a donor parts truck. Now that I know what it is, (Thanks @Jason in DLH ), I’ll definitely have to pull it and test it.

Will report back later on this.

 

[George B]

My 96 Silverado had one of those.

 

[Fless]

Someone somewhere has to be looking for one of these!

 

[Jason in DLH]

Don’t know. The truck it’s on is a donor parts truck. Now that I know what it is, (Thanks @Jason in DLH ), I’ll definitely have to pull it and test it.

Will report back later on this.

Thanks for the credit, but the real thanks goes to the Google Photos App.

 

[exp500]

My old 91 Burb had one!

 

[Ben Gatewood]

Mine works...it's pretty trick. Cool little feature you would never see on today's rigs.

 

[1BADI5]

They're pretty neat and rather easy to retrofit in other vehicles. Get a nice LED bulb in there and its a damn useful device.

 

[iamdub]

^^^ What Jeremy said. They have a crappy incandescent bulb (as expected for the era). But, the cord is crazy long and will reach to the rear wheels and, IIRC, the back of the light is magnetic. It's actually a coveted piece for these rigs!

 

[Ltzjeff]

I sold many vehicles because of that feature. Turn it on, pull it to the back of the vehicle, and “stick it where the sun don’t shine.”

 

[Tonyrodz]

I think I have one of these floating around somewhere. The cord is long enough to reach to your back bumper.

 

[1BADI5]

New cheapy/useful mod for the masses.

You can get them at the junkyard for $5-10

 

[2591tdj]

My ‘97 Tahoe had one.