Headlights gone or battery?

[aussieakito]

*waits for clairbear*

 

[ari666]

Bit of spit and away we go!

Oh god, who keeps derailing threads. Im looking at you Ari.

AS IF! i answered his question in post #2 was the guy with a hot rod of lovin' that derailed with his talk of alternator issues and shift solenoids.

 

[RayLamp]

I think you could try something here - you might need to top up the headlight fluids. Just use this blinker fluid - it's all the same thing, just with a different label.

 

[Tasmaniak]

I haven't seen that website in years. Lol

 

[maxthedralf]

you have to tickle the balls to make the headlights work.

 

[B-Man]

back to serious
cant believe no one has even said fuse...
check ya fuse (as its the easiest) then your globe then relay

 

[hakhawk]

back to serious
cant believe no one has even said fuse...
check ya fuse (as its the easiest) then your globe then relay

does the ve have individual fuses for low beam left and low beam right?

 

[Sabbath']

does the ve have individual fuses for low beam left and low beam right?

Im 70% sure it does. Tried finding a fusebox diagram but google sucks.

 

[gm1961]

Hi All

nice and funny thread

ok to the problem, usually you can work forwards to the problem ( fuel issues ) , or backwards ( electrical ) , or with the easiest to change and cheapest to change ( best bet )

Ok, get some one to sit in the car and use the headlight switch, ask for them to go on to parkers, note what lights up if anything
Now ask them to go to the next click and headlight setting, pay attention , you will either get nothing or dim - that will at lest confirm what has happened over the 2 stages

Ok time for a choice
1) remove the main globe from the headlight and inspect the bulb, if there is black tinge or the glass is cracked/broken it is no good

2) some cheap tools. you really need a voltmeter at this stage, turn the headlights on, use a voltmeter to find out what if any incoming voltage there is, not familiar with your car model, so at a guess there will be a 2 pin or 3 plug connector
the 2 pin will be power and earth for low beam all via the one light bulb , the 3 pin will be 1 power for low beam - a seperate power for high beam and a shared common earth

The 2 pin will be easy , connect the 2 test probes and see what the voltage reading is, if zero there is a break in the wiring, or fuse or dead relay or maybe a bad earth , if it is low voltge
eg under 10 it will be everything except a break in the wiring ( total break = 0 every time )

The 3 pin will be a guess , connect +ve to one pin and -ve to the other, if no reading, just move one of the test probes to the other terminal ( there is a 1 in 3 chance of finding earth and a 2 in 3 of finding power, in reality , with 3 pins all up and 2 power, you will always have 1 power pin selected at any time )

So from there you will know, if you have full 12volts, then power is coming in and you must have blown globes

If no power or low voltage then you have to trace it backwards, go to the drivers inner guard, open the relay box and find the headlight relay, , now if it is plastic you wont get zapped , have your helper, turn of the headlight, place your finder on the top of the relay ( seriously you will not get zapped ) , with your finger pressed on it have your assistant turn the headlight switch on you should hear or feel a click, this is the relay switchin on, if nothing happens they it could be dead or you could not tell.

Ok, now take out the relay and replace it with a similar type one eg horn or aircon something insignificant to test it with.

Now see if the headlight works - hmm actually maybe this should be test 1 before you take out the light bulbs.

If they work it was the relay , if not other problems ( or multiple problems, it could be a few things wrong eg damaged light bulb or wiring blows fuse and relay and burns a hole in the wire - serious it can happen - does it all the time on stuck EFI fuel pumps )

Not sure if there is a fuse under the steering wheel, have a look anyway and read the chart, again to test , swap with something same load rating again horn / air con, if it is those small plastic U shaped ones you can hold it up to the light and you will be able to see a break in the fuse pretty close to the center on it in the colored plastic.

Finally, it may be a earth problem ( i think fords have this as a serious under dash issue - but i cant believe everything a courier and taxi driver tells me ), to find out its back to the first test with the multimeter

Run a cable ( speaker wire is fine ) of the -ve of the battery and place it near the headlight, , luckily the -ve is not dangerous if it touches the car body , now connect that to the -ve on your multimeter ( set to voltage i did say that before ?? )

You you can tape up the -ve wire to the multimeter -ve test probe to free your hands, ok headlights on ( fuses and relays are still in) so try each of the headlight bulb wiring harness connectors terminal, dont worry about if you first hit the -ve , it will just be 2 x -ve and do nothing , once you touch the +ve that send power you will see 12 volts on your multimeter, with the 2 socket setup it will work on just one of the wires ( remember 1 send earth )

On the 3 wiring socket, again 1 is earth, one of the others will be power on low beam, you will know when you find it , the other will be power on high beam, might as well test that when you are finished, keep headlights on and move your blinker switch to activate high beam - but you said it was working, at least this will confirm which pin is high beam and you will see the 12v on the meter. hmm if it does not show there is something wrong in the set up as you said the high beams work,

Ok if now you find that there is 12v on the socket, and it was not there when you done all of this in step 1 then the only change was in sending earth or -ve to the multimeter

Best to see a sparky, but there is a cheap and easy fix, i will describe if and it is up to you to decide if you want to do it.

Use the wiring diagram to find the earth in the headlight loom ( well you now know anyway during the last test which one had +ve power, so in a 2 wire system its the other one in a 3 wire system you still have 2 guesses,
and it may not be as simple as saying its the black wire , use the wiring schematic

So if you want to do this, its as simple as going back say 6 inched from the plug, and cutting the earth wire insulation , ( use a potato peeler or a small sharp knife, just slice the top of the insulation off , sort of like slicing the top of say a pear or orange )
Now get about 12 inches of wire, strip about 2 inches of one end, now wrap this around the exposed wire on the car, make sure it is touching good on the exposed wires( you can wrap it around like a snake or make a small g or like a hangmans noose , secure it and tape it up , now the other end can go on the car body somewhere using a O type connector and a self tapper, actually if you dont want to drill a small hole on the firewall or inner guard just use a longer piece of wire and run it to the -ve on the battery ( old cars were easy there was always something nearby a radiator bolt or headlight bracket or the base of the horn or the battery tray or the external regulator bolt down screw )

now with a second reliable earth and no real break in the original wiring your headlight should have power and work, give it a go ( well if it was a bad earth )

Sometimes a bad earth will affect 1 light because there is not enough earth to power both lights, they can wither both go dim or one steals all the earth and works and the other starves and does not, but on a shared service usually they both go dim
, having a separate fuse and relay makes only 1 side fail when it is a +ve power feed fault, but if they share a common earth they will both go.


ok best of luck

regards
george

 

[aussieakito]

does the ve have individual fuses for low beam left and low beam right?

Yea, one fuse for each side