Electrical/headlights failure...can anyone help?

[joyridin']

Turn the ignition switch to ON. Take the negative side of the test light and ground it. Touch one side of the headlight fuse, then touch the other side. If the fuse is good, you will have power to both sides. This means the problem is after the fuse box. If the fuse is bad, you will have power to only 1 side. If you have no power to either side, the problem is before the fuse.

That being said, if it has a headlight relay, you may have power to the fuse and switch, but still no headlights. You would then need to check both the relay power and the main power wire into the relay. If they all have power, then the relay is bad. If either one does not have power, then you need to start tracing things backwards to either the headlight switch if you have no relay power, or to the solenoid (I guess this is where they draw the main power for the headlights..maybe rear of alternator?) if you have no main power.

Hope this makes sense. If it does not have a relay and you have power through the fuse, it is probably the headlight switch.

I had this same thing happen on my car. Apparently at some point in time, somebody forgot to correctly ground the dashboard. I would drive down the road and certain lights would just go on off randomly including the headlights as the current was backfeeding to find a ground. Took me a long time to trace that single stupid wire that was not attached correctly and was bouncing around. The dash now has 3 ground wires and I have never had a problem since.

[mrmustang]

A picture of the headlight switch would be helpful at this point in the thread.




Bill S.