Headlight trip

[kentwat]

My headlights have been acting kind of goofy going on and off, flickering etc but didn't think much of it. Well tonight coming home on a curvy two lane I was clipping about ~70 with the brights on since no one was around. Then over the hill comes a car I hit the dimmer switch and off the lights go. Serious ass pucker and then hit them again they came back on. Tapped them a couple times for dimms and slowed down. Needless to say I will not take flickering intermittent headlights for granted again.

Thanks ahead of time for the switch rebuild tip under electrical section since pullapart only has a few 88's.

[Dr_Snooz]

Zoinks! That's serious pucker there. I thought I had it bad with my wipers konking out for days at a time.

[senor honda]

I would check to see if one of the plugs came loose from the back of the light.
Check to see if a relay is going bad by swapping in a known good one.

I would look for the ground wire and trace it to see if the ground bolt
came loose somehow. or if a wire over time is severing.

Your story makes a good case for a person to mount one or more
manually operated driving lights.-Bob

[Bassmastry101]

https://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=60916

My girlfriend complains about this all the time. Not too bad of a fix, its just tedious.

Speaking of headlights, I came out of my buddies house the other day and the motor on my driver headlight was turning FULL blast (up down up down). No telling how long it was winking for since we were inside for a few hours.

[LJ1987LX-I]

Mine does it too, but it will only turn off if the brights are activated. Otherwise, with normal lights, they're fine. Happened to me going north on I-29 passing Crescent, Iowa at about 80 mph, with a curve coming up. Man, SERIOUS ASS PUCKER, no joke! Thank the lord that I know the stretch of I-29 between Sioux City, Iowa and Council Bluffs, Iowa like the back of my hand (traveled this stretch three times a week for 6 months (90 miles to and fro).

I haven't been able to fix the lights yet, but yeah. I did have a set of fogs, but fuck, just like the set of Hella's I had on my S10 before that, they'd be chasing ground, so only worked some of the time. That's why I just got rid of them and said fuck it. I'm tired of fighting lights to ground.

[lostforawhile]

if you do the repair, install a set of relays to handle the current from the lights, the issue is the low beam contact gets burned over time, the switch is really overloaded, if you install the relay setup, the switch will only be running the relay coils, and the issue will be fixed once rebuilt. The high beam contact is overloaded too, but since you don't use high beams as much it doesn't happen as fast.

[LJ1987LX-I]

These cars just get confusing! lol

[lostforawhile]

you run a set of relays for the left high beam and low beam, and a set for the right high beam and low beam,the original headlight wires control the relay coils,and the relays get power directly from the battery through an inline fuse for each relay. this removes the load from the switch. You can buy a kit like this made,and spend a fortune, or get four relays from the junkyard and do it yourself. Ford relays are made by bosch and Nissan relays are good and easy to find

[kentwat]

Ya I need a little motivation these 100 degree + days with index of 110 are getting old. I plan on pulling the column apart like the thread suggests.

[lostforawhile]

Ya I need a little motivation these 100 degree + days with index of 110 are getting old. I plan on pulling the column apart like the thread suggests.

good motivation is they don't make the switch anymore, if you repair it, doing the headlight relay setup will protect it from overload in the future, we have had a number of members who have had switches actually smoke and melt before,so it's an issue,even though Honda won't admit to it

[Dr_Snooz]

if you do the repair, install a set of relays to handle the current from the lights, the issue is the low beam contact gets burned over time, the switch is really overloaded, if you install the relay setup, the switch will only be running the relay coils, and the issue will be fixed once rebuilt. The high beam contact is overloaded too, but since you don't use high beams as much it doesn't happen as fast.

What amperage would those relays need to be? A how-to here would be wonderful.

[lostforawhile]

What amperage would those relays need to be? A how-to here would be wonderful.

I'll have to write one, you just use standard bosh type relays, one relay could handle both lights on high or low beam, but you want to use four to retain the safety feature of both high beams or both low beams don't blow at once. The other advantage of this is the lights are able to receive full current and are brighter. If you do an H4 conversion you definitely want to do this. You can normally get the relays for almost nothing, if you look in most later model ford minivans or trucks there will be about twenty of them in an under hood relay box, they are a bosch relay, the same one they sell for about 10 dollars online, the only minor issue is it won't have a mounting tab,so you will have to zip tie it in place or get creative, other good yard relays are in a lot of Nissans, you will see a series of relays usually in black/blue/tan etc, I've used them for years,very durable tough relays.

[lostforawhile]

here's a good how to, the only difference is on our cars there are four circuits, two for the high beams,two for the low beams, this is a safety feature to make sure a headlight blowing doesn't take out both high beams or low beams at the same time. you would do this exactly the same,but you would run two sets of relays, one for the left side,and one for the right, they are easy to tuck inside of the fender, it's easier to do that way anyway,because one headlight circuit is on the drivers side harness and one on the passenger side. make sure you either solder and heat shrink the connections,or use high quality connectors,don't cheap out and use walmart butt splices. Both types or relays I suggested from the yard will have the same corresponding numbers from this circuit. This will change the amperage draw of your switch down to milliamps, other then the running lights side,which doesn't pull much current anyway. Honda has a bad habit of overloading switched circuits, it's not just these cars, you also have an issue with the key switch contacts burning out, the main reason for that is the heater blower, thats a different thread though,also an easy fix, they were having problems with key switches being overloaded and headlight switches being overloaded even 5 years ago,you think Honda would learn by now



http://www.humanspeakers.com/audi/headlight-simple.htm

[lostforawhile]

oh for a laugh, this is from March of this year,huge recall from Honda......guess what? both low beam headlights stopped working at the same time, sound familiar? they never learn. http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012...light-failure/

[Dr_Snooz]

Very helpful. Thanks! I've been needing to rebuild my combo switch for a long time now and keep procrastinating. I'll wire this up when I finally get around to it.

[senor honda]

A temp fix for the "winking at the cops" headlight is to use the manual switch on the dash to open the headlights, then unplug the plug going to the headlight motor. Headlights stay open until you have time to fix it.-Bob

https://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=60916
My girlfriend complains about this all the time. Not too bad of a fix, its just tedious.

Speaking of headlights, I came out of my buddies house the other day and the motor on my driver headlight was turning FULL blast (up down up down). No telling how long it was winking for since we were inside for a few hours.

[lostforawhile]

A temp fix for the "winking at the cops" headlight is to use the manual switch on the dash to open the headlights, then unplug the plug going to the headlight motor. Headlights stay open until you have time to fix it.-Bob

you are supposed to pull the fuse for the malfunctioning light then use the manual knob to open it,under the rubber cover

[Bassmastry101]

you are supposed to pull the fuse for the malfunctioning light then use the manual knob to open it,under the rubber cover

Exactly what i did. But I only pulled it for one side and used the button to open the other..this way I could wink on command lol. Last week I pulled the motor relays and cleaned the connectors and started working as it should. I think that was just a temp fix because when I opened them the other night both sides only opened half way...it looked really sad like my car had down syndrome or something.

[lostforawhile]

Exactly what i did. But I only pulled it for one side and used the button to open the other..this way I could wink on command lol. Last week I pulled the motor relays and cleaned the connectors and started working as it should. I think that was just a temp fix because when I opened them the other night both sides only opened half way...it looked really sad like my car had down syndrome or something.

it might be the control module going out, or the linkage needs grease,use white grease on the pivot pin, the control module is the gray box on the kick panel above the fuse box, both lights opened the same amount? the box times the lights then uses dynamic braking to park them in place,so it sounds like the module