Headlights stopped working (4th gen)

[vanzep]

Got in the car started it up put headlights on - they came on for a second and then went out
Still have both side marker lights


So far i have:
(under bonnet fuse box)
Changed the lighting relay
Changed both 20amp fuses (1 for each light)

Taken the connectors off all the lights and checked them put them back on.

Still no main and high beam.......

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Drax]

Check if the wires have power and earth
Check all the fuses inside and out

[vanzep]

hmmmm
checked the lighting fuses - will have to get hold of a multimeter tomorrow
newkid stopped by and we got the full beams working but there seems to be a bad connection there or something.
still no headlights....

possibly something to do with the switch/stalk at the steering wheel being burnt out - ive got a spare set of stalks but open to suggestions.

guess i will be able to check things over better in the daylight

[simonc]

Hi Nick, this happened to me last year. The sidelights were on but no dipped or main beams. Given my lack of skills, I went to see Jason and, as Drax mentioned, he traced it to a wire (or wires, I can't remember) that wasn't earthed properly.

[bluejackhustler]

Check 12v feed to relay, and switch feed from stalk to relay. Should be quite revealing!!!

[vanzep]

Thanks for the suggestions - will go grab a multimeter and see what it says

[vanzep]

Merlin stopped by to help investigate this issue.
We checked the relay was working ok, checked the bulbs, swapped the indicator stalk with headlight control switch - still no dipped beam got side markers and full beam.

In the manual it says there is another relay/resistor thingy shown as being down underneath the front drivers headlight - i thought jdm cars didnt have this - not sure

Merlin thinks it is possibly an earth issue as there is power getting the headlight connectors.

Any suggestions are welcome.....

[sol-lude]

yeah from what you have said Nick, there seems to be a bad earth somewhere on the old lady. Just go over all the wires in the bay and give them a good check over.

[vanzep]

had another go today still not got to the root of the problem although it is definately an earth issue
replaced the whole under bonnet fuse box - difficult to tell but one of the wires to the ELD look a bit singed
cleaned all the contacts on all the bulbs as there was a fair bit of green ox on some of them
there is power to both headlight connectors and now we are getting dim headlights and brighter high beams than before
i guess a shortcut would be to add an extra earth connection to each of the headlights

so i still need to get to the earth points at the front wings but that means removing the wings and im going to buy some new headlight and high beam connectors and then im going to swap back to the old stock ecu and then i will have to look at the ICModule at the back of the interior fuse box but im leaving that till last

i would still appreciate any thoughts others may have on this

on a positive note the car is going really well with the chipped ecu running on 95 ron unleaded i even got the distributor timed up with some help from Merlin

[vanzep]

got some replacement connectors ready to fit and also i can now see where the earthing points at the front of the car are and how the connector that does all the earthing comes apart very easily- it does not need the front wings to be removed to do this-i dont know where i got that idea from so it should be easy to clean and check all the earth connections on either side

ive also been looking at the ICM module thats on the back of the under dash fuse box as this controls the dim dip function

still not sure what im doing but hoping to get this fixed one way or another