7 replies to this topic

[eeae6000]

im still having problems with my headlights, everything except low beams work, ive checked switch, fuse box, and the connections behind the grill, nothing, all fuses are good and i have power coming from all of them, down my the grill i get power on the red wire and on the blue wire when high beams are turned on, i also tried swapping the dim dip replay with a new relay and still nothing


my question is, what color wire should the low beams be behind the grill and what wire on the fuse box is the low beams, is there anything else i should check

by the way ive checked the wiring diagram but having a hard time figureing out what i am looking for


its a 1988 austin mini 998 by the way

[eeae6000]

edit: nevermind it wasnt the dim dip replay, i was messing the the relay near the brake servo, what is that relay for? and where is the dim dip relay located

[tiger99]

Low beams are blue-red, high are blue-white.

[bc130]

That relay you were messing with is the relay for the starter. Was it yellow. The dim/dip relay is behind the dash behind the steering wheel. You should be able to get at it
if you stick your head into the drivers foot well and look up above the pedal box. The relay you are looking for is a pink/redish colour. Did you check your earths on the headlights. A bad earth could just be your problem. It could also be a bad connection on the stalk. Worth checking all those things first. If you strip out the loom behind the grill you should find the connection where the earth wire from each light join. Check the connection incase its loose and it would also be worth getting a piece of wire and joining it to the earth wires and then earth it off a good ground and check then if the lights work. The earth could be broken between the earthing point and the joining.

Edited by bc130, 22 March 2012 - 08:18 PM.

[tiger99]

It is not the earth becaise he has main beam working, but not dip. it can only be the dipswitch, its connectors, or the blue-red wiring from the switch to the lights, possibly at the bullet connectors behind the bonnet slam panel.

But I do agree with improving the earths. A seperate earth stud for each light cluster, to which the black wite attaches, is a very good idea, because that way a single earth falling off will not make both headlights fail while on the move.

It was very wrong of BL, and wasteful of wire, to run them both back to the same point.

[bc130]

I misread the start of the problem. I thought that there was no light atall. My bad. Ya the problem must be somewhere around the switch or else there is a break in the wire running from the switch to the lights. Best thing is prob to find the bullet connector block (blue/red wires) joining the two headlights and check if there is power there. There more than likely isnt as it would be very unlikely for the two bullet connections to have a bad connection in the block (unless someone plugged them out or the block itself is dodgy). Next thing is prob trace the wire back and check for any breaks. It might also be worth removing the steering cowling and cleaning the connections on the stalk/switch.

Edited by bc130, 22 March 2012 - 10:26 PM.

[eeae6000]

i have no power at the bullet connectors, will a bad relay cause the lows not to work ?

the relay i was messing with was black

[tiger99]

There should not be a single relay in the headlight circuit. It is dangerous to use one single relay to feed both headlights, in case the relay fails when you are driving fast on a dark night.

The headlight wires are blue from main light switch to dip switch, blue-white fron dip switch to main beams, and blue-red from dipswitch to dip beams. Did the relay wiring have any of these colours? If it was a dim dip relay, it would have a blue-red and a blue-brown, amongst others.

If you have a dim dip unit, which is not needed, one of the outgoing wires at the dip switch will be blue-brown instead of blue-red. Remove the dim dip unit and join the blue-brown to the blue-red. Just insulate the other wires.