satch

iTrader: (1)

That the headlights turn off when the high beams are engaged definitely indicates that the relay is damaged within and I apologize for not picking up on it earlier. The ground wire "had to" be working properly or the lights would not have turned off and the reason why they turned off is when the relay changes position inside to pass the voltage to the high beam wire the voltage is not making its way throught the relay because the contact is fubar as "Hailers" mentioned earlier but it is indeed changing position inside because the low beams turn off. Again, I apologize.

satch

iTrader: (1)

HAILERS, why does it indicate in the thumbnail pic that the Black wire connected to the alternator has the number 3 in the B?

junito1

Where is the ground for this part of the harness? should i be checking for it?
What part of the harness would i start looking at first for sign of damage?

HAILERS

Because somebody made an error and the 3 should be a 7 OR a 1. That wire is the output of the alternator and I was sure it was spliced to the same wire that feeds the ignition switch.......but might be wrong about that. Might just be spliced to the cable b/t the batt positive post and the starter solenoid.

EDIT:

My big buck 86-87 FSM with wiring diagrams in living color, show the output cable of the alt spliced to the wire that feeds the ignitioin switch and also spliced to the 80a fuse on the fuse box (bolted on black wire on the aft side of the engine bay fuse box).

In other words the online wiring diagram is wrong to show a 3 and should show a 7 inmyveryhumbleopinion.

HAILERS

The ground wire that makes the retract motors go up/down is the same ground that the switch puts on the headlight relay.

IF the headlight relay pulls in or clicks when the headlight switch is put to full ON, then the gnd wire is good.......but that is already confirmed when the retract motors go up/down.

The ground for the headlights is good 'cause when you did a jumper job earlier they came on.

This a series four car? Or series five?

If your workig by yourself...........take the neg batt terminal off the batt.........go turn the headlights to full ON.......go back and hold the headlight relay in your hand..............while at the same time putting the batt neg terminal back on the batt. I'd guess you'd feel the headlight relay click or make a noise when the batt neg is put back on.........which confirms the gnd for the headlight relay is good............plus the retract mtrs would have come up at the same time confirming the gnd is good. To eliminate some noise associated with the retract assys coming up, you could pull the retract fuse in the engine bay to eliminate that noise conflicting with the sound/feel of the headlight relay clicking. Headlight bulbs gnd is located under the or behind the left strut tower on a gang of five gnd wires bolted to the frame.

satch

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for the reply and I knew it looked fishy.

satch

iTrader: (1)

EDIT:

There are probably a few things you could do to isolate your problem. One thing would be to disconnect the plug to the headlight relay which then removes the dimmer relay and headlights from the equation in addition to the headlight relay although I doubt the bulbs themselves are the cause for your problem and then you could place a new fuse (30 amp HEAD) into the fuse box and turn the light switch to on and see what occurs. Your headlights will pop up but obviously not come on. This should isolate the problem to the switch, and or wiring involved, fuse box included.

Another thing would be with headlight relay plug disconnected again is to jumper each of the red wires in the relay plug directly to the R/B wire at each of the headlights ( one Red wire to the driver side and the other Red wire to the passenger side) which will turn on the lights and then observe for any problems with the fuse. In this case do not turn the switch on. Disconnect the switch and this should isolate the problem from the fuse box to the headlights, wiring included. If things seem to be okay with the passage of time then reconnect the switch and see if things remain the same or not.

junito1

Its an s4. I have heard both headlight and dimmer relays click everytime i went to do a test for satch. I can hear them and feel them clicking.

I wish i had my camera to show you the headlight fuse.
Ill try the other suggestion tomorrow.

junito1

If the relays click it means they work? Or did i misunderstand Hialers.

I gave a quick look for the 5 wires grounded to the frame but could not find them that area. LEft = driver side right? Bit clustered in that area.

While looking for the ground i seen a bare wire near a white plug located under the brake master cyl. The plug has about 6 wired looks similar to the CAS plug. The bare wire is already green copper. SO far it looks like the wire was black/white I didnt strip the tape far enough yet. Im a bit worried.

Satch-

I tried using a new fuse already. It made no difference. The new fuse is still fine from me having the lightswitch to the on position for a while.(lights up but not on). I already used a spare light switch i had and it changed nothing.

The relays.. are bad or good? Its the wiring somewhere. My car had a really bad electrical problem once. But a relative happened to be a mazda master mechanic and fixed it. HE said it was an important part of the wiring harness on the driver side. The problem was that the car was shorted so bad when the key went to on position the wipers would start going and the starter would even try to start the car.

satch

iTrader: (1)

Just because the relay clicks does not mean the relay works. The coil inside the relay is what makes the clicking sound but just because it clicks doesn't mean the contact which allows the voltage to pass through is operating properly. The relay has two positions, one allows voltage to pass through and the other position prevents the relay from passing voltage. When the lights are in the off position the relay prevents the voltage from passing through and to get the lights to turn on the relay changes position to allow the voltage to pass and cause the lights to turn on. Your problem is the relay doesn't change to the 2nd position which allows the voltage to pass through and the proof is that the Red/Green wire has no voltage when it should. If it did then the contact within the relay is working properly but it doesn't!

The reason why there are two Red wires going to the headlight relay is because one is for the coil which will make a sound when the coil recieves voltage on one end of the coil and a ground signal on the other end, and the other Red wire is awaiting for the 2nd position to allow the voltage to pass onto the Red/Green wire. Thus each relay is problematic. Sorry.


You state that both relays click which proves that the ground signal to each of the headlight relay and dimmer relays are good and that is all. Thus you are at least in need of new relays. Thus each relay does two things and your relays are only doing one of the two things necessary. Your headlight relay DOES NOT allow voltage to pass through and the dimmer relay DOES NOT allow the high beams to turn on.

junito1

SO, There is the possibility that when i replace the relays they might get burned out also?
Ill start hunting down some relays tom.

satch

iTrader: (1)

There is that possibility but it is more than plausible that the problem was caused by one of the relays and that led to a chain of events which damaged the other relay in the process.

I suggested you replace the fuse to diagnose where the problem in the circuit was occuring and never as a complete solution. If you had a new fuse in the fuse box and had the circuit do individual things and the fuse remained in the same condition then that would lead one to conclude the relay(s) were the trouble maker.

I suggested using jumper wires from the Red wire to power up the headlights and bypass both relays to check if you had any change in the condition of the fuse. If the fuse did appear on its way to being damaged then that would obviously indicate that the relays were not the sole problem problem if at all or they played a role in the problem but not by themselves. I also suggested just using the switch to pop up the lights with the relays disconnected as another method to see if the act of doing so was causing problems at the fuse or not. I would find it logical that if neither test caused damage to the fuse then the problem lied within one or both of the relays.

EDIT:
If you want to prove that the light switch and dimmer switch were providing a proper ground when they were engaged all you would need to do is the following. Take a test light such as an led light for example, and place one of the wires into the back of the headlight relay plug where one of the RED wires resides and the other wire to a known ground. If the light turns on then you identified which of the wires were the positive wire and which of the wires was the negative wire. If the light doesn't turn on then the wires are crossed and need to be switched. Once you got that straightened out all you would have to do is place the positive wire of the light to the RED wire and the negative wire of the light to the W/L wire and turn the headlight switch to full on and if the light turns on then the switch is sending the proper ground signal to the relay. You could do the same thing with the dimmer relay where the positive wire stays connected to the Red wire from the headlight relay plug and the negative wire of the led light goes to the White wire found in the dimmer relay. Then pull on the dimmer lever and if the light turns on then the dimmer relay is also sending a proper ground to the dimmer relay.

junito1

Update!

I finally got some relays. The headlights operate normally now. But, I haven't tried the high beams. Im a bit worried about trying this.

Note. I only replaced the headlight relay(grey).

satch

iTrader: (1)

Who needs high beams? If you also purchased a newer dimmer relay then you could test it while it's not plugged in.

junito1

I had got a hold of 2 headlight relays and 2 dimmers. ! headlight is on the car already.

I just dont want to burn them out. BUt I am tempted to try highbeams.

satch

iTrader: (1)

Your original dimmer relay is damaged as was noted in previous testing so it won't allow your highbeams to come on, but just the low beams as the contact within it is stuck in the low beam position. For the high beams to operate you'll need a replacement that is in working condition. Like I said earlier, you can test the newer ones.

junito1

SHould I just intall the new dimmer and see what happens? I will have one more of each... just in case.....

Or do you have a better suggestion?

satch

iTrader: (1)

Your car=your call. I just remember your previous dimmer relay was faulty to an extent.

junito1

F- it. BRB Im going to go try this crap.

Just did it. The highbeams work and nothing went wrong. BUt the passenger highbeam does not work.

satch

iTrader: (1)

The passenger high beam uses the Red/White wire so either the wire is not making a good connection at the light or the highbeam filament in the bulb is out. If the driver's side is working properly then the R/W wire coming out of the dimmer relay is good but somewhere after that is the problem if it isn't a bad bulb.