rxspeed87

I noticed the dash lights flickering once or twice and then today went to go out to my car turn the lights on see the headlights pop up and turn on but dash lights are still out. get out of the car no tail lights from parking lights nothing jst headlights and thats it.

I'm hoping that it is easy just bad solder job like most electrical problems but I just want to check also before I start tearing stuff up

on the light switch with the head light **** on top looking at the pins top on right hand side 2nd one in
_____
/------x-\
|--- ---|
that one looks a little crispy. what does that connection serve?


so is this prolly just a resolder job or did I bust something would you guess

rxspeed87

nm they work. little to early in the morning and guess I was just looking for some reassurance that I Was doing right. oh well thanks though

rxspeed87

ok so I'm still having some problems with it. the headlights stay on and work just fine the tail lights dash lights and all that quit though. I've resoldered the thing many times and the joints still look good so I don't think it is my solder work.

the only thing I am able to think of is that one spot that is getting burnt though I have no idea why.

torean

bad headlight switch.....do a search on my name and u should find a similar thread on this....i have this same problem

Icemark

Come on rxspeed87.... Covered in the FAQ for FC sticky thread. With 975+ posts I would think that you would know to read the FAQ for FC sticky thread before posting!

You will need to replace the light switch and the light switch harness, then fix your bulbs sockets.

It is not a simple re-soldering job.

rxspeed87

lol yeah yeah I know and swore I saw it before but I forget the whole FAQ things as I am not here that often though I guess it would be nice to.

but I already read the otehr post and it makes sense that I need to start replacing stuff

oh well life goes on. eitehr taht or I am going to rig something up that might work I hope

383Mazda

Hey,
I know this is a month late, but I had the same problem, and it WAS just a simple fix... don't let someone who has never even seen your car tell you you need to buy 10 different things cause he's upset you didn't use the stipud search engine.

I took my dash apart and found the same "crispy" looking connector the plugs into the headlight switch, I stuck a very tiny file in the burnt looking pin and roughed up the metal, and it worked for a while, then broke again, so I knew that was my problem. Luckely, I had a junk rx7 sitting around, I went and found the same connector, pulled out a good looking pin along with a few inches of wire and made a very SIMPLE swap for $$$ZERO!
brandon

Icemark

No the FAQ for FC sticky thread covers this. Pretty simple... and always the first reference that one should be looking at before posting any questions...well unless you are a newbie that can't read.

#1 You can not use the same harness if the harness is burnt. If you do it will fail again. The metal gets hot, changes shape and changes resistance.
#2 you can not use the same headlight switch just by cleaning the contacts. When the pin overheats, it melts the solder where it meets the board and the vibration of driving the car while it is hot results in a cold solder joint, which again leads to the harness and switch burning up.

The only solution if you have a burnt switch is to replace the harness, and replace either the plug (which requires un-soldering and removing the old plug and soldering a good working plug in) or replacing the switch if the board itself has not burnt.

So you can micky mouse the fix like you said, but it will fail again (usually on very short time).

Or you can spend $100 on a harness and switch and be done with any problems for then next 10 years.

383Mazda

It's been 3 months and I'm doing fine...

I used a small screw driver and knocked out the old pin in the little plastic connector (the metel one that was crispy) I only tried cleaning them first to make sure that was my problem, if they worked for a week or two (like they did before failing again) I knew that connectoer was my problem. So, like I said, I found an identical metal pin from another car, used a small screw driver again and took it out of tha plastic connector along with a few iches of wire so that I wouldn't have to worry about soldering any wires to those tiny pins.
I went back to my car, CRIMPED the two CLEAN wire ends together (cause soldering two wires together on a car isn't a good idea like you said) and threw on some shrink wrap.

And I know how to use the search on this site, but his was a simple question and I knew I could answere it quickly. And I'm sure he didn't want to spend hours on a computer looking though page after page of info just to find one answere... some of us have lives, so he did what I'm sure 90% of the people on this site would have done, he started a new thread.
I'll end here though, cause I know you have a job to do; Keep looking for those annoying little "newbies."