Winking Headlamps

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:04 am

I keep meaning to put this up, and moving the car today brought it to mind again.

My car seems to have a sense of humour: very endearing, but possibly not to the MoT man when I get round to getting a ticket.

Anyway, put the headlights on, they both come up together. Off, they both go down together ..... sometimes. If you repeat, the O/S light goes down a second or two after the nearside. If you repeat agin the O/S delays by several seconds. If the lights have been on for a while, or you repeat four or five times, the O/S headlight might take ten/fifteen minutes to go down.

It never actually fails to dissappear, and usually does it when you are talking to someone alongside the car, as if to join in the conversation, or wink at another car.

Like I say, quite a jolly problem: definately character, but I suppose I ought to at least fathom out why it does it. Any thoughts?

BTW, I've tried the obvious stuff: doubled the earths, tapping the motor when the light should be down, wiggling (technical term) the connectors: which all seem perfect, etc etc. Its always done it, and I've not changed anything, and the lights work perfectly.

fourteener · Post by **fourteener** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 10:42 pm

could try swapping the relays (under black plastic cover) to see if other light becomes temperamental

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 11:43 pm

I'm pretty sure I tried that: in fact I did (while I was waiting for the rear tyres to be done) I remember now, thanks anyway!

looks like I'll have to go back to basics, and just double check all of the supplies, and more likely earths, and after that just (as you suggest) swap things lft to right one by one ....

If I find it, I'll post it up: it just seemed such an odd poblem I thought it might be worth mentioning

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fourteener · Post by **fourteener** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 7:40 am

Barry -it needs fixing fast as any passer-by will immediately jump to the conclusion that it is an X19

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 8:19 am

Good point, just need to paint some fake rust on to complete the transformation

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fourteener · Post by **fourteener** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 7:10 pm

ha-ha thats cheered me up after a long long day

pauladev · Post by **pauladev** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 5:22 pm

You've got one of the rent cars from San Francisco!

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 5:33 pm

Sorted: here's how I got there and what it was.

Symtom was that O/S headlight would go up perfectly, but delayed going down, getting worse the longer the light had been up.

The relay was swapped side-to-side, and worked so that was ruled out.

I knew it could not be power supply, commutator, earth, or feed from relay to motor, as the motor would raise the 'light fine, and all of those parts are common to both up and down movements.

So it was looking like: something in the 'parking' wiper part of the gearbox, the 'down' voltage to relay, or the 'down' voltage from relay back to the motor.

Took the 'parking' assembly apart, and found that the contact is a piece of copper riveted onto a copper(?) spring. The copper rivet that controlled the 'down' circuit was loose and intermittent. Tightened the rivet, and reassembled eveything, confident of 'downward' operation. Not so

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Had another think, narrowed it down to the piece of wire from the switched connector to the wiping/parking switch on the motor(only thing not prooved O.K.). The wire looked fine, and it was only when I cut the plastic sheathing off, there turned out to be a little resistor there: this had snapped.

I've now by-passed it, as it is only there to take some amps off the wiper and the relay (but only only powering the relay, not the motor so I think I'll be safe).

Anyway, light now zooms up and down, happy as anything.

Thought I would put the whole of the process here, just for reference

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pauladev · Post by **pauladev** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 8:02 pm

Congratulations Barry - if only I could understand what you were writing about - I guess it is a case of 'you had to have been there!!

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 8:51 pm

I gather I'm about as understandable when I talk as well

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 8:59 pm

Editted, still not very clear

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Bottom line: wierd headlamps: look under the piece of heat-shrink that covers the three wires (green/black, red and grey) that are soldered onto the motor. Underneath the sheath is a resistor that may well have broken. If it is, it can be bypassed to make the headlight raise/lower at the possible long term cost of the relay contacts or parking wiper contacts. More than likely will be fine though, as the load is only on whilst headlight is actually going up or down.

Oh dear, even this is a bit long winded

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