nosnow

Just had an interesting issue and am curious the collective wisdom. My headlights turned on but they would not pop up. They worked manually but not via switch, shut the car down and restarted and they worked as they should. Which electrical part should I look at replacing or cleaning? Within the last year I cleaned all grounds and replaced ground wires. Thoughts?

nosnow

This was on an 89 S4

soontobered84

Headlight relay.

Alan

Or just clean the tracks inside the headlight motor (more likely for these symptoms IMO). Remove motor & clean wiper tracks - these feedback the headlight position to the relay. Seems your relay thinks the headlight pods are already up since it doesn't drive the headlights up but does turn them on.

Alan

gbarron

On my 89 S4 it turned out to be the headlight relay. The coil that pulls in the contact to activate the headlight motor was getting weak.

Quick test: Pop the cover off the relay and observe for correct operation. You may need to cycle it a few times before the lights don't raise up. When the lights stay down check the contacts. If the contacts are closed (and clean) then the problem may be elsewhere, When I tested mine I only needed to slightly nudge the contact and it would pull in to complete the circuit and raise the lights. New relay fixed the problem permanently.

nosnow

I suspect the relay it is 29 years old, I'll take it out and look but I suspect it is the culprit. Does anyone know if this would also intermittently cause the dashlights to go out with the lights on? Only happens with the lights on and I am fairly certain it is not the dimmer switch.

Alan

Almost everything is 29 years old...

The headlights have nothing to do with the general pod lighting (only the main-beam warning lamp).

I think you had a different problem (lights not going up - but staying off).

I think the relay here is likely OK for the reasons I said.

The way the relay works is it drives the pods up and down based on the light switch: pods down for all lights off, and pods up for headlights on. It only drives down if it detects the pods are not fully down and it only drives up if it detect the pods are not fully up. The quite separate light switch parts of the relay also only turn on when it detects the pods are fully up. A single failure in the headlight relay could not cause these two problems (pods not moving AND lights coming on when they shouldn't - might cause the pods just not to go up though) - you would need several failures to get this behavior (possible but not so likely). However position switch contacts stuck on in pod fully up position would give you this exact behavior.

Alan

polecat702

Not trying to hijack this thread, but I swapped ou my CE Panel, in my 89 with one that came with the car. Everything looked great, the panel looked to be in better shape than the one in the car. After the swap, the headlights won't raise, and are staying off. I raised them by turning the motor, and they came on but the motor isn't cycling up or down. I did swap out the relay too, and no change.

Where do I start to trouble shoot this problem? Everything else is working.

Alan

Read the part number on both panels - upper front face... are they fact direct equivalents? things vary slightly between most years and at some year breakpoints they vary a lot.

Does everything else work OK?

Alan

polecat702

Yes Alan, the numbers match. Everything else works as before, except the headlights won't cycle up or down. They will come on if I spin the **** on the motor and raise them by hand. The fog lights come on when the headlights are down, by moving the stalk forward, and they flash. Everything worked before I swapped panels.

This panel is in better shape, that's why I swapped them out.

The Forgotten On

Try to see if any of the wires with spade terminals have popped out of the back of the fuse board or popped out on the wiring harness side.

Alan

First check the motor fuse (electrically test). Then if its not that - the obvious next step is to swap the relays - use the old working relay on the new panel - see if that fixes it. If not we can start some other diagnosis.

Alan

polecat702

Thanks Alan!

nosnow

I looked around and didn't see anything. I also can't replicate the issue. I try to address things as the come up but in this case it appears to be a gremblin.

hopefully Polecat was able to resolve his problem.

polecat702

I couldn't get back to check out Alan's suggestions till this afternoon, had some things to do with the wife.

Anyway, it was the fuse. It looked OK visually, but it was broken inside. Swapped it with a new one, everything is working as it should.

If it weren't for Alan's electrical knowledge about these cars, I'd be in real trouble.

As always thanks to everyone for helping me outta this jam!!!