tylerg

So I recently bought an old beater 86 rx7.

The flip up lights are very oddly mod wired; there is a switch that has been wired in the center area by the e-brake that turns the headlights on and off.

Then on the left of the dash there is the typical **** that flips the lights up and down. BUT the headlights will only flip up and down if they are on (the center console switch is on). So once I turn off that center switch (turn off the lights), the lights no longer flip up and down.

Not only this, but when the lights are off, they stay flipped up. I can ONLY flip them down with the **** when they are turned on. So having the lights flipped down during the day or parked is impossible unless I leave the lights powered on.

I don't want to take this in to the shop to get fixed, as I can only imagine the bill at the end of it. But obviously I want to be able to flip up the lights to turn them on, and down to turn them off. What a concept!

misterstyx69

iTrader: (142)

Sounds like a Lazy or Sleepy eye mod was done.
do the lights only go up half way.but if you hit the Switch they go up all the way?.(if so,sleepy eye mod).
you can get the "gizmo" on Ebay.if that is it..(try to see if one shows up onEbay and compare it to your Thingie.)
I would really see about just putting in a Regular headlight switch and harness,back in,and trace the wiring to the Headlights,and retractor motors..If anything is spliced in between,then the guy has done some kind of MOD or Quick fix.
hope that helps,even if a little.

959595rotor

step 1remove all od wiring,relays swiches etc, step 2 test your headlight switch for proper working condition,replace as nessary wire headlights according to shop manual look for burnt wires on back of switch wiring harnes if burnt replace small harness,, check for small motor covers ,if they are covering the ***** on the lower motors if not locate a pair and install them , lube your rods, and links, turn switch on first click ,test,park lights if ok, the test the electric motors for full operation then test for high and low beam operation if ok.......... step 3 enjoy............................................. .........hope it helps

HAILERS

Like mentioned above, it can't be fixed from here since we can't trace just what the fella did to make it operate like it does.

Normal operation of just the lights coming on is: turn light switch **** and you put a ground on the RW wire from the Black wire. See first jpg. The gnd on the RW goes to the headlight relay near the radiator and that causes that relay to pull in and headlights come on. This does not cause the light assy's to go up/down.

Up/down is caused by rotating the light switch: That causes the RED power wire to feed the Red/Blue wire and that goes to the headlight motors to make them rise on up. Inside the headlight switch you can see a set of contacts to the left of the jpg that represent the small **** just above the headlight switch. That switch on a normal car can make the headlight assy go up/down without using the headlight switch itself.

The guy who messed around and made the aftermarket switches probably had/has and bad headlight Switch harness. IT connects to the headlight switch and is only about a foot long. Has two plugs on one end of it and one larger plug on the other end that mates with the FRONT harness. Pull the elect plug off the headlight switch. Look at the harness plug and see if you have a burnt wire near one end of that plug. It would have been a white/green wire that is burnt. IF so, buy another headlight harness and make sure it's the same series RX headlight harness i.e. series four, not series five.

Like the man above said, it ain't a gonna be easy. Gotta check the wires end to end for continuity and make sure the switch does what it's supposed to do and isn't broken internally. And don't forget the white/green wire I mentioned in the headlight harness plug.

Also on early cars, like my 86 and early 87, there is an external retract relay(s) bolte to the bulkhead the headlight assy are bolted to. Other cars like the ones in the attached jpgs don't show or have these EXTERNAL retract relays.

You coulda bought that Yugo and not had these problems with the RX.

tylerg

Thanks for all the responses.

So this is not a lazy eye mod, I talked to the ex-owner and he said the lights never went on, so thus the mod to get them to come on. Which seems odd to me, but very little details.

The switch in the center is power, and the **** on the dash is up/down. If there is no power (switch off), then the **** doesn't work. When the power is off, the lights HAVE to stay up. This is what I want to change.

I've attached a pic of the wired mod, hopefully this helps.

The question now is two fold. 1) How do I change the red/white wire (mod) that has been manually wired into the dash wire in the first pic to the switch.

2) In the second pic there is two wires (not related to first issue??), that are hanging below the dash, one is blue/yellow, the other is blue/red, what's this? Having a hard time tracing it, as its very tight into the dash.

tylerg

So I just wanted to put up the fix of what I did quickly.

After removing the dash and not really knowing where to go from there with the wiring mod, I started thinking rationally. The mechanics of the flip light is likely less confusing then a bunch of wires that I have no clue what they are doing!

The main problem was that the lights flipped up, instead of down, when they were powered off. So I asked myself, what mechanical arm raises and lowers them.

So in looking at the arm that is pushed and pulled to force the lights up and down I realized that the little motor simply spins like a clock, always the same way, and thus moves the arm, so if the arm was in the opposite position, it would have the opposite reaction.

So I unbolted the arm, flipped on the headlights power turned the **** to lower the lights, but then raised the light manually and bolted it back on.

So now when I flip the lights off, the motor spins the arm down instead of up.

The power of the non-ingenius thought!