Bloku_

Hello all,

This is a 2001 C2 with halogens (basic / base headlights).

Only the driver's side low beam is out. I went and quickly swapped the (working) high beam for the (thought to be blown) low beam. It worked! Yay...? Then I bought new headlights and put them in. The headlight is now out, again!? So I put the old headlight back in. still out?! What gives?

So I whipped out the multi-meter and went to to town: Wiring from bulb to connector on the headlight have full connection (check), old and new headlight bulbs pass bench test and actually light up? (check), fuse blown? nope (check), headlight switch delivers power to fuse terminals? (check).... So now what? I thought I need to make sure that the pins on "headlight socket" (that's what imma call it) are receiving the voltage I need.

The headlight socket has 7 pins (8 if you count the blank), and the book shows the 9 pins. OK, so I looked at the blue connector and see 9 pins labeled. Now a bit less confused. I found a pic online where I see some numbers on the blue socket. Some help would be appreciated! Here are some photos of the connector and wiring diagram:

Thanks y'all!

EDIT 1 - when following the wires from the low beam blub --> connector, they put me on the pins in the center.... so maybe there is some internal crossovers within the blue socket? I say this because 9 pins in and 7 pins out... there must be some change? Really just confused right now. Any ideas gents?

Assumed Pinout (wrong?)


Pinout numbering in my book


Pinout REAL according to the numbering convention on the back of the socket...




Wiring location (DP X1/1 is my next location to test) (this image is for 2002 + cars but seems to be 90% the same?)

allcool

How do the harness look..? These seem to be a common 996 problem with symptoms like you have.
All it takes is 1 or 2 little spots of bare wire to cause intermittent problems...

The below pics from Adrian's site. he sells upgraded harnesses

https://www.adriantaillights.com/sto...986-c114018836

Bloku_

Thanks Allcool. I will check it out. PO redid all the wiring in the headlight due to wires being bare. It all looks good as new in there now... I will report back after a few more hours of toying with it :/

Bloku_

Ok, wound up taking both headlights out to compare.

1. Turns out the books numbering system ≠ physical numbering system written on the plug and headlight. Pin 2 in the book is hi beam +12v while pin 2 on the headlight (physically written) is the lo beam +12v... Yikes.

2. I know the pass side headlight is working so when turning on the car and power along with lo beam turned on, I made a chart of the pins and what voltage I am seeing and I see something weird. The low beam pin for +12V on the driver's side should be 12V (according to the pass side) but I am only seeing 1.33V!!! Not good...

No fuses blown, etc. We are going to have to follow this crap all the way to the fuse... Bummer 😕

Let's see how this goes 🤦
​​​​​

Bloku_

Well, unsurprisingly, the light's wiring "fixed itself". Something I touched must have fixed it. It must have been that headlight socket connector.

PO rewired the headlight due to the issues allcool brought up. All were good. I will update this post if the problem comes back and I resolve it.

Other than that, I haven't a clue why it went and and then fixed itself... Hey, better than it still being broken!

Peace,