I bought a new switch, new dimmer switch and new headlight harness. Installed the switch as diagrammed in the factory manual('55-'59 trucks). This is the same setup as the switch in my '59, John. Installed the new dimmer even though all testing (with VOM) showed it to be ok. It was old so I chose to be sure it wasn't a future problem. I did not find a specific problem with the old headlight harness but the insulation was very brittle and the headlight buckets were full of debris, spider nests and other crap that may well have been shorting out the lamps. Cleaned all the crap out, installed new harness and the headlights works great. I will install a 30amp. circut breaker ahead of the light switch in the morning to protect all lighting components against possible future problems....but, I couldn't get the parking lights to work so I removed the fixtures and discovered that the PO had installed the grill with the right side wires underneath the mounting and crushed the wires when tightening the bolts. I rewired the fixture and am still having problems with the parking lights and turn signals because of bad sockets. I am ordering new parking light assys in the morning and also a new stoplight switch . Soon gonna have the old girl 100% and can't wait to get her out and run her. Thanks to everyone who gave advice on this issue. I hope somebody having similar problems gains some help from this thread.
