Headlight relay replacement

[SPF846]

I have an older car (#846) and I think my headlight relay has finally died. I can see it zip tied to the back of the dash. But I haven't yet figured out how I'm going to get to it. I've searched the forums here and have only found people saying they replaced it. Haven't found anything about people talking about the easiest way to get to it. Makes me wonder if it is easy to get to and I'm just missing something.

Any pro tips on how to get to it before I start taking stuff apart?

[Blas]

You have an email
Blas

[NROTOXIN]

Originally Posted by SPF846

I have an older car (#846) and I think my headlight relay has finally died. I can see it zip tied to the back of the dash. But I haven't yet figured out how I'm going to get to it. I've searched the forums here and have only found people saying they replaced it. Haven't found anything about people talking about the easiest way to get to it. Makes me wonder if it is easy to get to and I'm just missing something.



Any pro tips on how to get to it before I start taking stuff apart?

Laying on your back with your head in the footbox looking up and your feet over the back of your passenger seat. Ensure you have diagonal cutters, ziptie and relay or whatever else you might need. As you know it's the middle relay of the three. You can certainly remove the seat to make it a wee bit easier but for me I'm too lazy to go that far.
Also, it's always good practice to disconnect/Isolate the battery from anything you're working on electrically.

[eschaider]

Originally Posted by SPF846

I have an older car (#846) and I think my headlight relay has finally died.

Why do you believe it has died?

Originally Posted by SPF846

I can see it zip tied to the back of the dash. But I haven't yet figured out how I'm going to get to it.

How is this relevant to determining if it has failed?

Originally Posted by SPF846

I've searched the forums here and have only found people saying they replaced it.

While not proof positive, this is none the less a pretty good indicator that the other owner(s) determined that their relays were unacceptable. Of course, you should not rule out the possibility the other owner(s) may have just had it in for their relay and were just looking for a reason to get rid of/replace it.

Originally Posted by SPF846

Haven't found anything about people talking about the easiest way to get to it. Makes me wonder if it is easy to get to and I'm just missing something.

A good indicator that it is not easy to do, is that it looks hard to do. Moreover, no one is suggesting an easy way to go about doing that hard job.

Originally Posted by SPF846

Any pro tips on how to get to it before I start taking stuff apart?

Can you turn on your headlights and/or did you check the fuse for the headlights?

[S1965C]

Make it a lot easier on yourself the first time and remove the passenger seat. It’s only four nylon nuts. Provides you waaay more room to maneuver without wrenching your back. Then you can decide whether it can be handled with the seat in place for another time.

I agree that you also need to check the obvious stuff first before pitting blame on the relay. But worst case is you end up with a spare $35 relay, which isn’t a bad thing.

[SPF846]

@Blas - thank you for the email.

@Everyone else. I didn't elaborate much on my original post. Parking lights come on. Low beams do not. High beams do come on but won't stay on. I went ahead and replaced all the fuses for good measure anyway, no difference. So the relay is my next target unless someone has another suggestion that I'm not thinking of.

Thank you all for the help.

[eschaider]

Your testing leaves the relay as the high probable failure point.

[NROTOXIN]

Originally Posted by eschaider

Your testing leaves the relay as the high probable failure point.

TRANSLATION....it's your relay.

[eschaider]

Not for sure but, certainly a high probable candidate for failure.

[SPF846]

Update (and thanks to Blas for the consultation). I replaced the relay next like I thought. I really didn't think that it would be the switch. Well, you can probably guess where this is going. Crawled under there and replaced the relay and no change. Only thing left was the switch. Pulled it out and swapped the low beams onto the pin for the parking lights and they worked. So it was the switch. New one has been ordered and should get here this week.

[eschaider]

Originally Posted by NROTOXIN

TRANSLATION....it's your relay.

Originally Posted by eschaider

Not for sure but, certainly a high probable candidate for failure.

Although it may seem pedantic, it is usually easier on us if we go after the low hanging fruit, like potentially bad switches, first. The replacement parts can be both less expensive and easier to install because they are, the low hanging fruit. If we are correct, the cost of repair and the effort involved can be less than the alternatives — as this repair experience demonstrates so well.

[patrickt]

Well I was going to say it was the switch but I didn't want to show you guys up.

[eschaider]

.....