Easy fix 4 your Headlight Headaches!
 

I tried to take the combination switch off so that I could take it all apart and clean the contacts. I had heard that this is not easy to accomplish, but I was fed up with having to wedge a screw behind the stalk to hold it in the flash to pass position (that was the only position in which they'd work).

I ended up getting stuck and was not able to actually remove the combination switch. I got frustrated and just hosed the whole thing out with a can of contact cleaner. Turned out to be a good decision! I did not have to remove or disassemble the switch in order to get it working again.

I just sat out there for 15 minutes flipping from on to off, brights to dims, all of it. I know I made over 1000 switches and it never missed a beat. Problem solved! :D

I took lots of pictures and I'll try to post a clear set of instructions so that even my own Mother will be able to do this in five minutes. The hardest part was parting with my 10 bucks for the contact cleaner (now that I know it works, I don't feel so bad about it)

Here goes:

1. The horn removal step;

Now, the Haynes manual is going to try to tell you to pry it off with a screwdriver. But what they don't explain is that its just the rubber cap that you are removing. So in picture no.1 you can see the scrape markings where I tried like hell to pry off the metal part with 3 screws in it. The cap eventually came off, but if I had known ahead of time to picture it as if I was, well, peeling a rubber cap off, then it would have only taken a few seconds to remove.

2. Steering wheel removal;

The socket I used was a 13/16ths. It's probaby metric, but this was a perfect fit. Once this was off I just pulled side to side a couple of times and the wheel popped right off. No sweat, but make sure you don't pop yourself in the teeth when doing this.

3. Watch those ball bearings!

In photo #2 you can see the plate that covers the two ball bearings. These bearings are what holds the lever in the dim/bright positions. Make sure that the lights are in the dim position, then remove these two screws and the cover plate. In picture #3 you will see me drawing out the bearings with a magnetic screw driver. This is after you gently ease the lever into the bright position. There are springs behind these, but I just left them there because the grease held them in pretty good.

Continued
 

Okay, now we're almost done with the hard parts...

Step 4; Removing the stalk

Gently pull the base of the stalk toward you, then at the last part of the withdrawal process you will pull the end toward you to ease the little doohickey our of the interior. Take a look at pics 1, 2 & 3 and you'll see what I mean...

Continued again
 

Now the fun part...

Step 5 Let the hosing begin;

First, unplug all of the electrical connections from the back of the switch even though the battery is disconnected (oh, by the way, did I tell you to pull the - cable off of the battery earlier?). I'm not sure if this is necessary, but its what I did.

Now take the $10.00 can of contact cleaner, stick the little tube into the nozzle, and hose the contacts off. I just hosed everything in there and all around. The stuff comes out at high velocity and foams a bit (don't get it in your eyes).

Next, I threw the stalk back in and moved all of the directions to work over the contacts. Then I repeated the hosing. Let dry. I hung a light from the visor to add a little heat to it, and after about 10 minutes I blew it out with a can of air (did I really say you could do this in five minutes? What was I thinking?).

The following pics show the contacts behind the stalk, and the cleaner and can of air I used.

Reassembly should be self explainatory, just put it all back together... Hope this helps someone avoid a wasted Saturday...: :D

I just worked the switch back in forth heavily in a rage one night because I had the same problem. They finally started working. I didnt even have to take anything apart.

~T.J.

Yeah, tried that before too. Once in a great while I could get the highbeams to come on, but not reliably...

I just took her out and aimed the headlights. I had to have them aimed really low since I was on highbeams all the time. Man, what a difference! I did the relay mod a few days ago, and now that I have the highbeams correctly aimed its simply AWESOME!! So much light....:)

I'm so happy this is fixed. One of those things that just bugged me for the longest time...

I'm going to try this soon!

My headlights are always on dim, I should give this a try.

Well, dim or off. Highbeams won't come on and stay on but I still flash people and tell them to make way for my monster (monster as in ugly, not monster as in a brute).

Anybody who tries this, please post with your results. Help us all keep track of what works for you and what doesn't..:)

Good post. I have the problem on my SE: dim and high flash OK, but Lights Out with the stalk forward.

How about just shooting Contact Cleaner into the opening without removing the wheel?

B

Didn't try that, so I don't know. I just disassembled it to the point that I could actually see the contacts, but you might be able to find a shortcut in there somewhere. If you do, let us know!

OK. I'm gonna go dig out my Contact Cleaner (I know it's around here somewhere! Maybe I'll even find the papers for the SE so I can get it registered properly).

B

Nice writeup, to the archive! One more tip that might help the contacts stay clean. Some dielectric grease might help keep them from corroding. If you can actually get it directly on the contacts.

But Carl, doesn't dialectric grease prevent electrical contact? Unless I'm mistaken in this, putting onto the contacts would seem to be a bad idea...

Where the contacts actually touch the grease will be wiped off. So where the grease remains, no air can get in to cause corrosion. At least thats my understanding.

you should put some dy-electric grease in there it works wonders...basically grease with particles the conduct electricity...amazing stuff!!

well on my 84 gs that i used to have, i ran in to this problem as well.. but since my ex-wife had broken the turn signal return tabs off i just ran to the local pick-a-part and picked up a new cluster and called it good :)

but if the tabs had not been broken off or well ok if at the time you could find gen1's in junk yards all day long (now a thing of the past around here it would seem now) so it was just faster for me to run and pull a few spares.

tried this, how in Sam hell do you get the wheel off, I took everything including the large nut in the center (duh) and then I tried everything to get it off, even a buddy and I pulled really hard, wouldn't budge..."whoa whoa, hang on make sure we unscrewed everything..." double check, nothing else that I can see. is it really that hard to pull off?

I love this kind of writeup, with great, detailed pictures. Nice job Kentetsu!

Rich

Look at the pictures to get an idea of where you want the cleaner to go. Then, put a tube on the can so you can reach in there, and hose it down. Chances are, you won't even have to disassemble everything like I did...

By the way, mine is still working fine after doing this, so it seems to last. :)

The wheel can be pretty hard to take out at times ... there is only that center nut that holds it in though, What you want to do is basically take a mallet or something simillar, and tap on the outwide edges of the wheel. If that doesn't work the last resort is a slide hammer, you can loan one out for free from some auto parts stores.

If you yank on the steering wheel, or hit the shaft with some sort of hammer you run the very real risk of damaging the collapsible part of the steering shaft. I know this because my 7 was stolen a long time ago and I ended up having to get the whole steering column replaced as a result. Best way to get the steering wheel off is to use a puller.

Man, I got so good at removing the combo switch and putting it back on in my '83 it wasn't funny. Took a while the first time, but now I can take off the wheel, steering column cover, and combo switch, take the switch apart, and then put everything back together in around 5 minutes. I finally got everything to work, but I had to do a little more than just clean the contacts.

I always just push on one side, while pulling on the other. Alternate a few times and it should pop right out. Make sure it doesn't take out your front teeth when it lets loose...

Worth a shot.....

Nice car by the way. Looks great (but I'm biased)! :)