lm38330

iTrader: (1)

ive searched and searched,ive changed out the harness and the switch twice,and bought new bulbs/headlights..

my headlights only work on high beam .ive checked fuses on both places and cant find anything.has anyone had this issue? how did you fix it?

any help is apreciated,Thanks

satch

iTrader: (1)

There is a Red/Green wire that takes voltage from the headlight relay to the dimmer relay. If this wire has voltage on it then replacing the headlight switch will have no bearing on whether the low beams or high beams work. Since you have high beams that proves the dimmer relay is receiving power and either this dimmer relay or the dimmer switch in the cluster is likely the problem.

Find the dimmer relay which is by the front of the car in front of the radiator bolted in place by the nose of the car. The dimmer relay is the first from the left among the possible relays located side by side. This relay has the following wires. Two Red/Green, Red/Black, Red/White, and White. Unbolt the relay so you can gain access to the bottom of it and locate the White wire. With the lights on take a jumper wire and stab one end into the back of the White wire and then place the other end of the jumper wire to a known ground such as the negative battery terminal. As you touch the wire to the ground pay attention for the sound of the dimmer relay making a clicking sound as it should. The high beam should switch to low beam when you touch the grounding source. If the relay does not click when the jumper wire is grounded then the dimmer relay is broken.

Try this and see what happens and give us a heads up.

satch

iTrader: (1)

In my attempt to illustrate how to analyze your problem I made an error in advising you to place one end of the jumper wire to ground which I meant to state it should be placed to the positive terminal of the battery instead.

To clarify how the relay works the relay in question has two contacts inside where one is for low beam while the other is for high beam. Normally, the contact is in the low beam position and should only change when the dimmer switch lever is toggled back to turn the high beams on. When this is done the dimmer switch sends a ground signal to the relay which excites the coil within the relay and the contact switches position from the low beams to high beams. Since your lights are in high beam mode that means the contact for the relay is stuck in the high beam position and is not relaxing to the low beam contact position. Either the contact switch inside the relay is stuck or the White wire that supplies the ground signal to the relay is being sent on a constant basis. This would be caused either by the White wire accidentally grounding out against metal somewhere along the length of the wire or the dimmer switch is forcing the White wire to have a ground on it on a continous basis as result of the switch being problematic when it relates to the switch being able to turn off the ground signal or not.

If the White wire has a constant ground on it then jumpering a wire into the relay and touching the other end to a voltage source would cease the ground signal from being passed onto the relay and therefore the contact in the relay should relax and the low beams should turn on. Again, this would only work if the problem is a constant ground to the relay as opposed to a stuck contact inside the relay.

lm38330

iTrader: (1)

so white wire is going to get jumpered to a power source?

satch

iTrader: (1)

Yes as you want to see if the relay will click and switch the lights from the high beam setting to the low beam position. As the jumper wire is touched to a positive source and removed and then placed back to a positive source the relay ought to click back and forth as well as the lights changing from brights to regular.


EDIT:

satch

iTrader: (1)

If you feel you are not getting anywhere with the jumpering technique then unbolt and unplug the dimmer relay and lay it down such that the plug end has three terminals on the top row and two terminals on the bottom row and not vis versa. If the relay is not stuck in the high beam position then there should be continuity between the lower left terminal and the center terminal. If there is no continuity between these two terminals then it is likely stuck and therefore there would be continuity between the top left terminal and the center terminal. If this is the case then you might be able to unstick the contact, which is what the jumpering technique I suggested earlier was to be used for, then to attempt to unstick it while unplugged you would lay the relay down as previously noted but do so on top of the battery. Then connect a jumper wire from the positive battery terminal to the upper right relay terminal and a ground to the lower right relay terminal. Hold one wire to the respective terminal while you touch the other jumper wire to its respective terminal in a repetitive manner (on, off, on, off and so on) as to unstick the contact. After doing such recheck for proper continuity as previously supplied to see if there is a change.

cityend

Hey Satch,

Wanted to say, thanks to your information, I was able to fix my stuck on high beams issue.

Just to clarify, your initial post was correct. I first jumped the white wire to '+' and nothing happen, it stayed on high beams. Thinking the relay was broken I thought I'd just jump it to '-' to see what happen and it dropped to low!!

Grounding the white wire unstuck the relay and now it's working as it should be.

Thanks

Chris