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Headlight fix for archiving


Tim_C.
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I like to save known fixes on my own harddrive, so here's one for anyone who does the same.

 

The left low beam headlight went out on my '85. I first checked the fuses, and that wasn't it. So I started switching from low beam to high beam, and checking what was happening out at the plug for the headlight. It seemed the ground signal was not switching on the low beam side only. I then thought it may be the dimmer switch, but then realized that would make the right side not work also.

So, I went looking at the wires from the headlight plug on the light itself. I stripped back the split loom to reveal the 3 wires. about 6-8" back, the red wire with white stripe was broke with both ends hanging apart. The other 2 wires were getting ready to break too, so I cut all of them, and then removed the gold pins from the connector, and soldered a 10" stretch of new wire in. The old wires were very stiff, so new ones seemed like a better choice to replace it with. You guys can go down and buy new headlight plugs at any parts store, but we just fixed mine since we have the wire, etc... laying around to do the job fast enough. Plus, we cut the wire the length we wanted so the new wire will flex when the pop-up goes up and down, not the old wire. That's the preverbial problem with any wires that flex back and forth such as wiring to the window and door locks in the door, and pop-up headlights. They flex back and forth at the same point over and over for years, all the while getting harder and harder too. Eventually they break, so this is a very common problem with all such wires on any type of vehicle. It is very easy and fast to check, even if you aren't electrically inlcined, you can check this very common issue and rule it out before tearing into more difficult areas to search for the culprit wire break.

I figure since this happened on my '85, and it is older than most of our cars, it would be good to advise the guys with newer cars that this will most likely be happening on theirs within the next couple of years. So, just an FYI, if you have a single headlight issue like this, take 5 minutes and pull the headlight, and open up the split loom down the harness a few inches to rule this out before racking your brain any further. Even if it isn't broke, you may see a problem ready to happen, and can do a little PM to fix it before it breaks on you.

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