Headlight Issue

[Boatbuoy]

Evening all,

Driving home this evening, all fine, flicking the full beam on and off as required with the steering wheel button. Suddenly, instead of switching to main beam the button sets the lamps to side light only when depressed. The blue full beam dash light illuminates as usual!

Any thoughts?

Regards,
Olly

P.S. it's a '97 R-reg car with original style head lamps.

[gruffalo]

Fuse would be my first point of call then the control box in the boot.

[sim shane]

Take a look at the headlight switching box in the boot above the fuel tank sharpish!! i think you will find it is likely the big cable has burnt out of the box. (fairly common i believe) This happened me just after i got my car. The cable is not big enough to cope with the current of the headlights and starts to burn at the plug in the boot first - it can be fixed here, then fit a relay at the front of the car taking a main fused feed from the battery to solve the problem long term as the factory cable is then only clicking a relay and not directly running the headlights. I will post some pics of mine later if you need..

[Boatbuoy]

Martyn, what on earth are you doing posting replies at 2am on a Monday?

Sim Shane, Thanks for your pointer. I'll go and have a look as soon as I can! Any pics you have would be most helpful.

Regards,
Olly

[Boatbuoy]

sim shane said:

Take a look at the headlight switching box in the boot above the fuel tank sharpish!! i think you will find it is likely the big cable has burnt out of the box. (fairly common i believe) This happened me just after i got my car. The cable is not big enough to cope with the current of the headlights and starts to burn at the plug in the boot first - it can be fixed here, then fit a relay at the front of the car taking a main fused feed from the battery to solve the problem long term as the factory cable is then only clicking a relay and not directly running the headlights. I will post some pics of mine later if you need..

You mean like this Sim?



Regards,
Olly

[spongy]

Carol did mine too..................oh carol

[sim shane]

Yea that's the one, though it looks like your having a problem with a different wire.

Here's mine
http://thumbsnap.com/sc/XGmojxuW.jpg

On my one I took the box apart and soldered a new piece of wire directly to the board then removed the old pin, drilled a hole in the box and then reconnected the wire further down after cutting out the burnt bit.

In my case this sorted it though I later changed my lights to hids and at that point added a relay and fused supply from the battery to sort the problem for good..

The melting and burning on mine was caused by a poor connection on the connector block together with the cable just not being heavy enough to take the current. The bad connector caused the arking and heat..

Hope this is some help..

Shane..

[K33LER]

Blimey chaps... Thanks so much... my lights just won't work at all. This seems to be the issue.

[K33LER]

By the way... is there any way of testing the relays in the control boxes?