Ok well i went for a drive before headlights were working fine. I stop to eat some dinner jump back in the car and the headlights pop up and no light. WTF i thought it was just a fuse, (my car is a jspec btw) I had a look at my fuse diagram and couldn't see any one just for the headlights. My dash lights, tail lights, parking lights (Jspecs have the FTP lenses that have bulbs in them) all work. My high beams dont either. I doubt its a blown bulb as both arent working, and they are new bulbs, put them in like 4 months ago. I did have a look at the fuses i thought might be related to headlights and they were all sweet. Anyone know what i should be looking for? Am i going to have to check the whole wiring loom out?

 

Oh and another weird thing, i did check the fuses etc real quick when i turned them on and got no lights, i walked round to the front of the car and the lights came on. I turned them off and turned them back on and no light, was thinking if it was a loose connection they might flicker on driving home and nothing.

 

As Icemark might say, pull the electrical plug off the light switch and look for burnt pins/sockets. Most likely a bad light switch harness. It's fairly short in length. Common problem.

 

Well i just pulled that off and it seems in good nick. I dont have a multimeter over here to check for continuity but they seem brand new. Next idea?

Edit: Another thing might be worth mentioning is i had a problem with my right headlight going dim once before, i found that problem to be the connector that joins the wires to the bulb, it was half melted. Both sides have had new plugs spliced on

 

And i read on fc3s pro that the solder can be broken on the switch. I have removed it and it doesn't seem like any of the solder is cracked or in bad nick. Ill take it to work and make the boffins check it out though. Any other ideas

 

My bad post. Usually that burned area means there will be no side lights nor instrument lighting. Headlights usually stay working. Oppps on my part.

I'll be back a bit later with something.

 

First of all, you Aus car is wired a bit different, but not that different than the attached jpgs.

Odd that neither high or low work.

I assume you checked the headlight fuse in the engine bay. See jpg of engine bay fuse box attached above. If good, turn headlights on and wiggle that fuse and or the wires below it on the fuse box.

The headlights work by you putting a ground on the Headlight Relay, when you turn the switch to ON. See the Yellow line I drew. The relay already has power from the Headlight fuse in the engine bay, so it should pull in when you do that act. So, seeing as how neither high nor low beams work, you might change out that relay, or baring that costly act, you might pull it's plug off and jumper the R/G to the R wires in the relays plug. The lights should turn on. If not, try the high/low switch and see if they come on.

IF you jumper those wires, and the lights don't work, It's a possible bad Dimmer relay, but I say NO to that because it seems to me the lights would have worked in one mode or the other if that was the case. To prove that, you could pull its elect plug and jumper the R/G to the R/B wire in the plug and see if the lights come on.

Another thought is you've lost the gnd for the headlights themselves. I colored that in GREEN. It goes to gnd point number (4). Acutally I think that is located under the trail coil assy. It could be the rework done on the headlights plugs was done bad????? But that would mean Both gnds were messed up. Not likely in my humble opinion.

Try touching the Headlight relay and have someone turn the headlight switch to ON. See if you feel the relay click or not. But try the jumper b/t the R/G to the R wires in the headlight relays elect plug also. It'll give a clue to what is wrong. If the jumper does not cause the lights to work, I'd suspect that relay isn't getting a gnd from the switch action.

 

When you turn the headlight switch to turn the lights on, you put a ground on the headlight relay, using the R/W wire at the electrical plug of the switch.

Soooooooo.....if you have that elect plug off the headlight switch right now, you could get a piece of wire bare at each end. Then put one end to a known ground. Then with the other end, you touch the R/W wire in the electrical plug. The headlights should light up. No other action needs to be taken. The plug can be off the switch altogether for this to work.

Doing that, would prove the circuit from the elect plug of the switch to the headlights is fine and dandy and the problem lies with the switch or the ground wire of the switch.

Acutally, now that I think of it, all you'd do is jumper b/t the R/W to the pure Black wire in that connector. Lights should light up, IF the rest of the circuit is good.

The ONLY purpose of the attached jpg, is to show you that when you select ON with the switch, what your doing is selecting a ground for the R/W wire. All the power for the headlights is right there at the headlight relays coil, all day long, with or without the key in the ignition. All the interior fuses can be burnt out and the lights would come on. Just need a good Headlight fuse in the engine bay fuse box.

 

when you figure out what the problem is let me know!...

my vehicle is jspec aswell and i have the exact same problem, if i figure it out i will let you know aswell....

 

Well I haven't got a multimeter or wire here to test at the moment (am at my gf's she doesnt even have a shifter) but i am definetly leaning towards the relay at this stage. I had the boffins at work re-solder all the connections in the headlight switch today and reinstalled it and they still don't work. The headlight fuse looked a lil corroded but not broken and i swapped it with the ignition fuse and still no lights. Why did you say these relays are expensive? If figure if its not the switch, and symptoms do not look like dimmer it has to be the relay. And i crimped on the headlight plugs myself and i double checked em, they still good.

 

Also is it unsual for the relay to burnout without blowing the fuse? Seems odd to me

 

Well i borrowed a wire from my amp to check if it was the relay and it is, thanks for your help and time hailers =D seems like its one problem after another with this car lol why did i choose it over an FD lol im an idiot

 

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I assumed the relays cost a lot because they had MAZDA written on them.

The relays are at the front of the car and are not hermetically sealed. I've had, in the past, two bad Retract Relays (only on early 86 models, I think) that were bad and when taken apart were rusted up inside.

 

Are these a thing that you can get from car shops or am I most likely going to have to go genuine? Mine doesn't say mazda lol

 

Well, you can buy a relay from???? and install it. But the elect plug of the RX probably won't fit it. Yeah. Not MAZDA on the relay.

For your amusement, call Mazda and ask them what one would cost you. In this area of the USA, the creeps who own the dealerships would want the arm and leg scenario, plus my first born. After all, they have a sub prime mortgage to pay off (all default subprime mortgage holders can drop dead imho)....along with all the Barney Franks and Nasty Pelosi's creeps. That includes the totally inadequate black man who's running for office.

 

lol well i called mazda they wanted $70 AU for it. But i pulled it off and showed the boffins and they managed to fix it =D Headlights work fine now =D part of the plastic somehow got bent and was interfering with the relay

 

Slowrotor.....can you tell us what you found wrong with the headlights? We have learned from this thread, but it just ends with no real ending. We are having similar problems, have changed out the headlight switch, changed and tested relays and are still having problems.
thanks

 

What aspect is wrong with your lights? Is it confined to the headlights not turning on or something else?

 

We are down to headlights not coming on, flash to pass work, headlights flip up. We are down to checking ground from switch on back. We put another ground to the relay and the lights came on. We have 2 new switches both of them do the same thing. Any suggestions or help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Laura

 

Either the headlight switch internal contact that causes it to pass a ground signal when the **** is turned is the problem or the wiring to the relay that supplies the ground is defective. Normally, when the switch acts up it does damage to the headlight harness as well. If you took an LED light for example and put one of each leads on the battery terminals to turn the light on you could figure which wire connected to the LED was positive and which was negative. You could then take the negative ground lead of the LED and touch it to the terminal on the actual headlight switch (not harness) that is supposed to supply the ground signal and then take the other LED wire, the positive one, and touch it to the terminal of the same switch that is supposed to have power and turn the **** to on (the **** could be turned first if it makes doing this easier) and the light should turn on. If the voltmeter proves the positive terminal indeed has voltage when switched to on and the LED does not turn on then this would prove that the switch is not providing the proper ground source necessary and the problem is internal regarding the light switch. If the LED light does turn on then connect the headlight harness to the switch and do the same thing at the other end of the harness and so on thus proceeding closer and closer to the relay that is supposed to receive the ground signal so as to turn on the lights.

 

An error was made in my previous post and to correct it you would use the RED wire/terminal of the "harness" as your source of voltage when testing the switch as I had previously noted.

 

Found our mistake. Misplaced a wire when replacing the connector for the light switch. Moved the wire in the proper place and everything works now. Thanks for your help.