Leonel

I'm hoping you guys guide me in the right direction with my headlight problem,I can ride a bicycle forever but I'm not very mechanicaly inclined especially when it comes to electrical problems , my headlights seem to work only when they feel like it ,i've checked the fuses and even replaced the light bulbs with no luck,the wiring seems fine(iceshark's),can you guys shoot me some some tips on how to go about this problem.thanks in advance .
Leonel

IceShark

Leonel. who ended up installing my wiring harness?

You need to determine which system is fluking out, mine or the stock. If it is mine it is probably a loose positive off the alternator or loose ground. If it is the stock system it needs to be traced back from the left hand headlight plug.

Get a cheap multi-meter so you can test voltage. The headlight plug (both mine and the stock) have legs like this: |_| You want to take voltage off the left vertical (brown wire) and the center horizontal for low beam. So carry your trusty multimeter and when the lights decide to stop working jump out and test voltage where the stock headlight connector plugs into my wiring. If you have no voltage then it is your stock system.

Could be that your stock wiring has a flex fracture in the wire core from all the years of the headlight bucket going up and down. You can figure this out by grabing the wire and squishing and squeezing it together. If the lights go on, you found the break. Next stop is the fuse relay board and the fuse for the left dipped headlight beam. Then it is over to the headlight switch.

Also, when the lights go out, check to see if switching to high beam works. If this is a new problem I would probably rank the items to check as 1) flex fracture in the stock wiring; 2) loose ground or positive power bolts connecting my wires; 3) headlight switch.

Try this out and report back.

Leonel

Dan
I installed the headlights and wiring myself (thanks for the great instructions)and everything has worked out really well for over a year,i will give the tests you suggest a try and report back
Thanks
Leonel

Leonel

Found the problem. The housing on the white wire going into the stock socket is cracked ! Dan thanks again!

IceShark

Leonel, thought it might be those stock wires. The white one is for high beam. Make sure you check the yellow, low beam, and the brown ground for cracks. All three of these wires end up triggering my relay switches so they are sort of important.

Leonel

Ooop's I spoke too soon ,Dan it was actually your ground wire going into the left side plug that broke ,the one that comes off both relays and then is spliced together before it goes into the plug,it broke right at the plug , can it be saved or do I need a new plug?
Thanks
Leonel

IceShark

It can be saved pretty easy. I wonder how that happened, though, to break that wire.

All that wire does is provide ground to the relays so we just need to connect it to ground. Do you have a soldering iron?

We can go two ways. You pull the old terminal out of the plug and crimp on a new one I can send you, solder it and re-insert into the plug. I'll tell you the best way to do this.

Or, I'll send you a short piece of wire with a ring terminal on one end and some heat shrink. Then all you need to do is splice this extra wire onto the broken ground , solder it, and cover with the glue lined heat shrink. You can shrink the heat shrink with a bic lighter if you don't have anything more fancy like a heat gun. Then just screw in the eye terminal into one of the relay mounting svrews.

Or you can go to the hardware store and get a few bits and fix. Just let me know how you want to go.

Leonel

Either way works for me ,going to my neighborhood hardware store to get the few bits to fix it might be easier as long as I can find the right terminals there.

IceShark

Let me know how the hardware store trip turns out. I can just drop some parts in the mail if you strike out at the hardware store.

Leonel

They sure don't have much in my neighborhood store ,Dan you got PM