nhdoc

I just spent the better part of the last 2 days repairing some prior work that had been done on the wiring of my car at the headlight switch. Seeing how it is designed it is clear that if the headlight switch twists, even slightly, because the retaining ring loosens it will cause wires to break and make a simple thing very hard to fix. The problem is Porsche was kind enough to leave almost no slack in the wiring there, so if a wire breaks it's almost impossible to repair it in place.

The former owner of my car must have had a problem where the wires to the parking lights broke and during that repair the technician decided that rather than fix it correctly he would solder the parking light wires directly to the headlight feed wire. This had the unintended consequence of causing all of the lights to come on if the turn signal was left in either the right or left turn position with the key off, instead of just lighting the parking lights on one side of the car, as it is supposed to. This could cause a serious overload to the wiring at that turn signal switch since it is only supposed to handle the relatively light load of the parking lights on one side, not all of the lights (including the headlights!). I am sure that in short order it would have burned something up if left on. Also, my parking lights would not work alone with the switch in the first position, only with the headlights in position number 2.

I landed up adding 8" pigtails to each of the seven leads on the switch plug and spliced them to the existing wires in the dash to restore full function of the switch and parking light features. Splicing those stubs in the dash was no fun because there is literally no slack in those wires and only a few mm of wire to spare. Three of those wires are 2mm thick (12 gauge) because they handle all of the current of the headlights/lighting while the other 4 are smaller wires. Another puzzling design is why they didn't just have a relay close to the headlights instead of having all of that current being handled by the switch. That's why they had to use 12 gauge wire in there. I guess that stuff would never break but the small gauge wires that go to the parking lights, dash lights and warning system are quite vulnerable to breaking though as they are only 0.5mm and 0.75mm wires.

So, if you want to avoid trouble later tighten your headlight switch now to prevent it from twisting and breaking those wires, it will save you lots of headaches later.

Rocket Rob

Thanks for the heads up. I'll go check mine now.

MrNvgtr

I created a recent thread on this topic asking how to get in there, but it is a mystery apparently. Can you please explain the best way to gain access to the ring to tighten the headlight switch?

nhdoc

I believe I replied to your thread...you need to remove the **** and turn the threaded locking ring clockwise to tighten. I used a snap-ring tool and held the center of the **** with a needle nosed pliers.