Headlight help

[kenr74]

Hi all,

I'm new here and could use some help. I did a search but didn't find what I was looking for.

A few weeks ago some punks broke into my LXi and tried to steal it. They trashed the ignition and stole the stereo before giving up. I ended up replacing the ignition and a bunch of fuses and everything seemed fine. The problem is that my headlights go up now but not down. Is there a relay somewhere I should be looking for and where is it? Is there something else to look at?

Any help would be great. I've just turned 232,000 miles this morning and it's still going strong.

[86AccordLxi]

Not to ask a stupid question but did you hit the switch on the dash next to the defrost to see if they go down again??

And welcome to the board btw. I see you're from Oregon. We're having a meet on the 15th of next month in Vancouver, WA that you should come check out. Anyhow, good luck with your problem.

Alex

[kenr74]

Yep, I tried that switch and it didn't help. I'm out in Mac so I may run up to that meeting. I've only had my car now for about six months but I've put around 15k on it. Love it so far!

[MoonScryer]

Did you check the fuses under the hood? There are two of them for the motors there, plus another one for the light motors. The fuses under the dash are for the lightbulbs themselves. Also, check to make sure plugs coming off the wires which attach to the combination switch (the thing with the lights/blinker arm and wiper arm are on) are all plugged in correctly under the dash - there are three of them, all near/above where the fuses are; big things. Also, check the motor retractor "box" under the dash, on the drivers side, squeezed kind of above and on the outside of the fuse panel - it's a bitch to get to, but is known to fail sometimes.

It's also possible when they tried to steal the car, they jammed a screwdriver into the ignition, and busted something in the combo switch; it isn't known for being resiliant. Consider replacing it. Remove the steering wheel and lower dash cover to gain access, remove the column covers by removing the 7? screws from the bottom of the covers. It takes a bit, but is easy to do if you take an hour or so to do it.

[MrBen]

Most of the things in the combo switch can be fixed by cleaning the contacts. If nothing is broken on it, consider cleaning everything and making sure everything in it looks right.

[RustyHo88]

http://www.pauldesign.ru/honda/shopmanual.html

download that, go through the steps... you will thank me. i had the exact same problem you had. with the lights that is, not the breaking in thing :) anyway... my problem was the combo switch on the dash... the one that makes the headlights stay up or go down without the lights being on. you can test it with the directions on that manual i gave the link to... or you can just go to a junkyard... pull the thing, and try it.

[kenr74]

Ok, thanks for the help. I did check the fuses under the hood and they were both blown. There was a total of seven fuses blown when these morons tried to steal the car. I may have missed a fuse somewhere so I'll do the trouble shooting and see where that gets me.

[lightbulblxi]

check the wires for the stereo. when i put in my cd player, i fucked up the wiring and hadd that prob. are any of the wires touchin each other or touchin metal?