Hey Guys,

Need some help help on my FD 96.

My headlights were working fine including high beam etc, however all of a sudden one night I was driving and I went to put high beam on as I was driving through a forest the lights blacked out, released the high beam lever and the lights were back. Tried it again and same thing but this time it blew the headlight 30a fuse and no more lights, the pop ups stayed popped up however sidelights were working.

what I’ve done is changed the relays, used a multimeter to check power to the bulbs, but cat check the high beam as every time I do it blows the fuse.

any ideas?

 

Is your headlight setup stock?

If so it could be a wire that's shorted to ground somewhere.

Dale

 

Yes headlights are stock.

is there a ground for each or 1 ground for both lights?

also are the ground(s) mounted behind the light, if not could you kindly tell me where I may find them?

will take a look

thanks Dale

 

One common problem is the wiring harness in the fender wells getting rubbed through. If your car is lowered or has aftermarket wheels (or both) that's a common culprit. If you jack up the front and see that the wheel ate through the plastic fender liner and into the wiring harness, there's your problem.

If not, go forward from there. I can't remember the grounds in that circuit but if you are instantly blowing fuses on the high beams that means you have a wire shorting to ground somewhere. The ground itself probably isn't the problem.

Dale

 

I did cable tie the wire in harness properly again because I was sorting out a bit of rust behind the front wings, when this was done the wiring harness was all good and had no issues, both sides. I can take a look again I guess because there’s no harm in doing that.

I’ll try and look at it this weekend and see if I find anything

do you think it’s worth cutting the plastic tube where the wiring goes through or just have a quick look to see if there’s any tear or scrubbing that’s happened?

thanks Dale!

 

The harness is pretty hardy, Mazda designed it well. The main problems I've seen is just the wiring getting rubbed through by a tire.

You shouldn't need to cut open anything I wouldn't think.

Dale

 

Hey Dale,

I will double check it but tbh I’m very very sure the tyre hasn’t gone through it because I did tuck it away properly and prior to that it was all intact.

the only thing I actually did was a bit of the plastic was missing so I added some black tape to protect everything that was visible that’s about it.

but as I said I will check it and thank you for the help. I will repost once I’ve checked it.

 

Hey Dale,

so a little update. I never managed to check the wires under the wheel arch because there was a storm here in the U.K, however I was working on changing the cluster bulbs inside and all I have done is dropped the steering coloumn and remove a few panels and the cluster of course. Put it all back together and somehow the headlights are flashing again.

very very very confused. Can you think of anything, assuming it’s a lose wire or cold solder failure. Any ideas where I should look?

thanks Dale

 

It could be a bad connection to the headlight pop up switch on the instrument cluster surround. I think the circuit goes through that, if that switch isn't plugged in or has a bad connection it isn't going anywhere.

Hey, enjoy it while it lasts .

Dale

 

hey Dale,

ahhh okay, well I still have the clusters out and I will take a look at that plug and see if everything is good, just as a precaution. But saying that when I used to press the switch it worked fine but will have a look anyway.

lol thanks!