No brights (headlights)
 

I've searched and not been able to find an answer. I have a 91 vert, trying to get it road ready again. But I'm having a problem with the headlights. I turn them on and the low beams work perfectly fine, but when I pull the switch to change to brights, there is no change. The lever works when the headlights are off, for low beam flash, but will not turn on the brights when the headlights are on. It will not activate the little light on the dash that tells you the brights are on. I know that it won't pass inspection without high beams. Also, if you know the answer, my right turn signal flases abnormally fast, but my left signal doesn't. Confused about both. What should I check? And yes, all of my fuses are good, I've checked them all, three times..

Quick flashing blinker usually means there is a problem w/the bulb, bulb socket or too much resistance on the wire to the bulb. If those aren't the source of the problem then it could be related to the circuit board in the CPU.

As far as the headlights are concerned it could be the headlights themselves or possibly the dimmer relay. Go to the relay, located in front of the radiator (has five wires; two Red, White, Red/Black and a Red/White) and w/the low beams on place a ground to the White wire, from lets say the negative battery terminal, and the brights should turn on. Do they?

I had a fc sit for a year, i jump started it and blew both headlights out and the main fuse
I had jumostarted plenty of FCs of mine before that but for some reason that day the lights blew out. Check the lights first.

I had heard about the CPU having problems with the solder points and had pulled it apart to check and didn't see any bad connections on the boards. I'll try to put the ground on here in a bit and see what happens. If they do turn on, then does that mean the dimmer relay is good?

Yes.

Alright. They come on, so what should I check next? The cluster switch?

Dimmer switch, yes. The Red/Yellow wire at the switch connects to the White wire at the relay. At the switch place a ground on the R/Y wire w/the low beams on and see if the high beams turn on. If they don't then there's a poor connection between these two wires. If the brights come on then your problem lies within the dimmer switch. If so, it could be the switch itself or the ground wire to the switch is not good. If you placed a ground to the Black wire at the switch and pulled the dimmer lever back w/the lows on and the highs turned on then the problem is the ground wire at this switch and not the switch itself.

Where can I place a ground inside? Any pictures would help as well. Also, the lever for the signals and to switch the lights isn't connected to the dial for the headlights. The lever is mounted on the column

Backstab the Black wire much like you did to the White wire at the relay.

Alright, so they didn't come on when probing the cluster switch. How would I go about checking the wires between? And would there be any harm from temporarily wiring a toggle switch into the relay? Just so I can get it passed inspection?

If you want to install a toggle then there shouldn't be anything wrong in doing so.

The Red/Yellow wire and the White wire are connected at X-17 which is found near the driver side kick panel. I could give you a heads up as to how to locate this connector but it needs to be known whether you have a car equipped w/an airbag or not.

Sadly, I do have an airbag. Only driver's side though. I wish I didn't, but I'll take it all out when I replace the steering wheel down the road. I can't stand the wheel with the bag. Not enough hand space. I know where the kick panel is though, and I know there's a mess of stuff under it. If I installed a toggle switch, what gauge wire should I use? And should I take any wires off of anything?

Same gauge as the White wire should be sufficient enough.

X-17 on an airbag equipped car has 4 corners like all plugs except on your car the 4 corner wires are as follows (and this is the front side of the harness. Other side is the cluster harness). At one end the wires are Red/Blue and a pin w/no wire in that corner spot. The other end of the plug has a Blue/Green wire and a Black/Blue wire. The plug has 17 pin spaces but some are not used. In this plug the White wire from the front harness side of the plug mates w/the Red/Yellow wire. And the Black wire in this plug is the same wire at the dimmer switch plug.

And when you backstabbed the Black wire w/a ground wire you need to make sure you used a sufficient ground source for just using any nearby metal is not always going to do the job. When you grounded the White wire you probably used the battery ground which you know should never fail. Since the White wire is in X-17 you can once again backstab it with a ground w/the low beams on and if the brights come on then you know the ground source is a good one.

You're in good hands with satch. You were backprobing the plug at the lever, correct? And make sure you have a good ground point. Not all parts of the frame near the pedals are a good ground.

You can even use a booster cable attached (only) to the negative terminal as your ground wire, if you don't have a long enough wire to bring near the area you're testing. Just make sure the clamps don't get near any +V.

Keep going, leave the toggle switch idea as a last resort :)

I can't see the individual wires that go into the lever. There's a very nicely wrapped bunch that go inside the plastic cover. The lever is separate from rest of the dials. It's different than what's shown in the FSM and from my old RX7 was, that's actually why I struggled to get the panel off. I was back probing the solid black wire in the bunch that goes to the headlight dial on the far left and the red/yellow wire on the same bunch. And I appreciate all the help guys, I suck at fixing the electrical gremlins

No mon, you need to take the black cluster surround out (the part around the gauges). One or two screws on the bottom on each side, and three at the top near the clear instrument cluster. Be gentle, a lot of that plastic has tabs that break easily. Need a stubby screwdriver (ideally). There's gotta be a video on youtube or how to around here.

Then you can get to the plugs behind the levers. I don't think Satch was talking about the round light switch.

I already had that off, I find a 1/4 in socket with a phillips bit works pretty well, a trick I picked up a few years ago for tight screws. But the lever for the brights is mounted on the steering column. And it's got it's own bunch of wires going into it, I had to remove the plastic around the column to get it off, and to get the cluster panel off as well because the levers blocked it. Going into the lever there's a grouping of wires that are wrapped in a black sleeve. The sleeve goes into the lever. As I mentioned though, I'm not very adept with electrical terminology or much else. The dials to raise/lower the lights and turn low beams on/off is separate from the lever wiring though. I think it may have been changed on the 91 models only, because my 88, R.I.P., had it all wired together through the same harness. I think I may go ahead and do the toggle switch for simplicity, at least until I further educate myself on wiring

http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_...3_original.jpg

This isn't mine, as mine is disassembled to a degree, but the cruise lever and light lever are the same in how they're mounted, on the column. I like that steering wheel too, but that's irrelevant

The relevant wires can be found in X-17 as all wires in the dimmer switch should be in this connector. The plug connecting to the dimmer switch should have nine wires. They are G/W, B/R, R/W, R/B, B, G/Y, G/R, R/G and R/Y.

All you need to do is find the ground for the dimmer relay.

That wire is not in the switch-gear on the cluster. The switch on the cluster is working fine. The body cpu has a relay board that has gone bad. The body cpu is in the driver kick-panel. That is the plug connector Satch is trying to help you find.

I have an excellent picture showing the exact wire(pin in the connector) in the first post my thread where I documented my cure for the exact same problem you have.

Check the whole thread out. There is more help for you there.

https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generati...er-fix-840197/

BTW I am in year 5 after executing this fix on my 90 airbag vert. Headlights with high-beam/low-beam still working just fine.

Good Luck!

Good luck
https://www.rx7club.com/attachments/...-imag0642a-jpg

Okay. I'll have to pull it apart again. And I checked the inside of the CPU a few weeks ago and didn't see any connections that were bad on any of the boards, jackhild. I wasn't real sure what to look for to tell if they were bad, but all of them were still making pretty solid contact to the board. I've got the toggle switch in it right now, to at least get it past inspection. When I get another chance, I'll tear into it and see if I can't figure it out. I appreciate all the help guys!

You won't see anything bad, the relay just won't work. The boards are fragile even when new. You can buy a new board at Mazdatrix and fix the problem too.

I'll have to live with the toggle switch before I go buy a new board. I've still gotta pay to get the injectors cleaned

A stupid question, because I'm ignorant about automotive electrical stuff:

The Relays in the FC have different part numbers. Can I use a universal relay, or do I need to get the specific dimmer relay?

A universal one will work fine.