Headlight issue.....

[izzo]

Alright. I can't figure this out.

Headlights on low
Passenger side fine. Driver side on but dim
Bright lights, super low glow in the bulbs

Turn on the brights.
Passenger side low/high fine. Driver side high not on at all, and low beam even dimmer.

Checked voltage at the prongs across all four plugs, 12.8V with the headlight switch off.

When headlight switch on, (only checked low beams) I got 12.8v except on driver side, black with white wire on the low beam plug. its the wire closest to the fender on driver side...


Wat do?


I pulled the relay apart. the contacts look fine, and clean. I also manually pushed the contacts in so the high beams would come on, and that yielded the same results.

[Laecaon]

Ok, what year is your 510?

What colors are the wires into the headlight plugs?

[flatcat19]

Is the relay even working?
How are the grounds?
Have you ran a resistance check through the whole circuit?

[izzo]

71 wagon.

has this type of relay



And..

Red with white, red with blue, red with black stripes.

[izzo]

relay works.. the passenger side low/high works fine. driver side dont.. I can hear it clicking in there when I switch between high/low

[izzo]

Is the relay even working?
How are the grounds?
Have you ran a resistance check through the whole circuit?

Pretty sure the relay is working, its just the driver side having issues.
IDK where the grounds are, besides the one that goes from the battery, to the block, back to the body. They are all new wires, and clean.

IDK how to run a resistance test. I do have a multimeter, though.

[flatcat19]

Put meter on ohms.
One lead on (+) other lead at first connection in circuit.

Resistance should be low, like 0.0 is what your meter will read. ]

Move meter lead that's on battery to next available point in circuit.
When you see that meter is reading way above 0.0 or even 0.L then you found the circuit with the short or open.

The leads on the back of the lights should be included.

Seems like a hassle some times, but I see some crazy wiring in my work.

Regardless, your circuit has only 3 things. Source, load, ground.
And only 2 things could be wrong. Open or short to ground.
Electrical 101 right there. So simple.

[izzo]

Simple for you

I set it for ohms, my meter has a few settings. IDK which one to use. it read some numbers when the leads were touching nothing. I put them on each side of a fuse on the brass connectors and it dropped down to 0. That how I do eet? Do I just put the ground on a ground, and the red lead on all the plugs till I find one that doesn't read 0?

[izzo]

fuck. I can't get it to read like it was a second ago. IDK wtf I'm doing with wiring, even more so this mm

[flatcat19]

I'll try to type a circuit.

(+)____(-)
I Battery
I
I
I__________(+)___(-)____________(-)
Light Vehicle ground.

In an ohms test, red or black lead doesn't matter.
The meter is only testing path of resistence.
Meaning, no resistance/low resistance, path good.
High resistance is corrosion or break/crimp in wire/circuit.

Put one lead on battery and one lead on light. Take reading.
Put lead on battery to (-) on light. Take reading.
Do all the way to ground.

Every junction needs testing.
Point A to B. B to C. C to D.

That is a simple circuit and you will have connectors and all that in your circuit.
Essentially it is the same. So if your wire travels through a connector, test to that, test both sides, and out the connector to the next junction.

Make sense?

[izzo]

Man I have no idea what you are talking about.

I understand how to put the leads on something.....

I can figure out the batter thing... I'll put a lead on the positive of the battery, then start making my around to all the contacts, then move a lead to the ground, and repeat.. IDK what setting to use on the MM.

Each setting reads different. I can't get it to read like it did when I posted a few minutes ago, IDK wtf is going on...

[flatcat19]

[izzo]

lol

I got it on that, but theres 2m 200k 20k 2k and 200
I guess it dont matter as long as I can see right?

I put it on an ohm setting. 20k

I put one lead on the positive of the battery. Then I hit up all the light plugs, most read 12.16, a couple read 12.7x

[flatcat19]

Put it on 200.

I'm a retard electrically too.
The way I told you was me training my brain to simplify it.

I also bought a bad ass Auto-ranging meter to further mask my retardation.

[izzo]

on 200.

back to the wagon be are be

[izzo]

every time I touch the wire again the number gets a little higher man..

started 6.1, touch the same wire now its 7.1, then it went to 8... I wati a few seconds to see if it levels off, make sure it wasn't a shitty connection.. Number just keeps going up or changing every time

[flatcat19]

What happens if you go to a different section of the circuit?

What if you go (-)battery to ground?

Make sure you can find a 0.0 before testing.

[izzo]

shrug, idk what you mean, man.

I can run it across the battery and it shows 02 every time..

I can literally hold it from +battery to a plug on the lights and every few seconds it goes up .1

I just went back out there, and it started at 0.x and I watched it go up to 2.2

[510freak]

Did you give the fuse box a douche(vinegar bath)yet?
Test fuses with dmm?

Fuse box alot of the time,effects the headlamps like you are describing Tim

One side normal brightness ,other side very dim and if memory serves,,the high-beam on the effected side is dim aswell

[izzo]

Switched fuse boxes, new fuses.

Ill switch back to the old fuse box real quick and see if that changes anything. I was having this problem before changing the fuse box, though. Had same issue on my orange 510 to, only the high beam worked on that one.

This car, the driver high beam doesn't work at all. But when the car is on low beams... the brights have a very slight glow to them.

They worked well once then quit again...