Quick question, had anybody ever had experience of their headlight relays, particularly the dipped one, randomly switching their headlights on even when the microswitch is fully depressed and staying even when the microswitch is disconnected? Or know any reason for it occuring?
Thanks
Andy
Had a problem with my headlights ealier this year. They were switching on and off when they liked.
I eventually tracked it down to the relay behind the dash it was crammed in and was shorting out. After relocating it down by the drivers heater vent its been fine.
Now there’s a first Lucas (the prince) usually switches the lights off
He did that to me on the first day I owned the car on a very dark twisty icey road in Fife when Prince Lucas thought it would be fun to cut all lights including the dashboard ones. An interesting sensation I have to say…
I thought the problem was with the new relays in the nose cone and took out grill and everytime I thought it was working I put grill back in and two seconds later they came on again, thought for ages I must be knocking a wire or something and then tracked it down to the original relays eventually. Wouldn’t mind but i just replaced all of them with new ones, and have to say that modern relays seem to be a damn site less reliable than old ones. Funny thing is that I have just been doing some reliability work with relays and they do appear to have a high failure rate during early life, just wish they would tests them a few times before shipping them. At ?2 and with 12 relays now on my car it starts to add up to keep replacing them, grrrrrr…
Cheers
Andy
Following on from your mention of microswitches I got rid of mine and the headlamp flasher system. My idea is that the simpler the system then it should be more reliable. Ok if I’m stupid its possible to have the lights down and switched on but the switch position would give this away.
John
Well my system now has only one microswitch which switches on the sidelights as well as the headlights by replacing the microswitch with the contacts of the relay with the relay coil be powered in the same way as the headlight relays. Does mean my car has 10 relays in it now, but I figure it is cheaper to replace a relay than risk any burn out on the loom or switchgear. I tkae it you are running a later model then with a switch for the headlights instead of the vacum switch.
Andy