How to fix automobile headlights, L.O.L.

[frank29]

A friend asked me to look at his headlights. He said the low beams suddenly stopped working. I told him I would be glad to have a look.

He didn't have a service manual; but, he did have a Chilton's type of book dedicated to several years of his particular model. I checked this. Looked at the book. I checked that. Rechecked the book. Wiggled wires. Scratched my head. Shook my head. Really examined the book, even digging into the wiring diagram. Scratched something else. Nothing worked.

Getting ready to give up, I finally asked him if both headlights had been working. He didn't know...said it was his wife's car. He called her and she said that one light had been out for awhile. When he relayed that crucial bit of information, I immediately said "Buddy, all you have is two burned out bulbs."

We bought new bulbs and sure enough that was the problem. The poor guy felt like a fool. Being the nice guy that I am (ahem, ahem), I downplayed the situation and emphasized how good it was to have found a solution.....I have been on the other end of several situations where no "mercy" was shown: one of the worse was back in '76 when I was just learning how to work on cars.

I was adjusting the valves on a small block Chevy with mechanical lifters. I didn't know of the existence of little clips that arrested most of the oil squirting through the push rods. Oil was all over the place, including, unfortunately, the headers.....talk about smoke. I actually had to stop the motor and add oil because it was taking me so long. Well, some neighbors saw smoke billowing from behind my parents home and called the fire department.

It scared the H out of me when somebody tapped my shoulder (I was all alone) and it was a fireman. That guy gave me a hard time. Now it's kind of funny....at the time it was serious....me, a little teenager, who thought I was a MAN, being confronted by some real men PO'd at a dry run.

 

[Bird]

Frank, I recently felt almost as foolish as your friend. The little indicator light came on in the dash of our '01 Windstar showing a light problem. A quick check showed the left tail light not working. No problem; I've changed lots of bulbs in the last 50 years. But I figured I'd take the bad bulb out first to be sure I bought the right one at the parts store. Hmm, bulb looked good, so I grabbed my multimeter and checked continuity through the filament. It checked out good. Wiring looked good. So I must have a more serious problem and stopped by the dealership and told the service writer what I'd done. He grabbed a screwdriver, took out the left tail light bulb, then went to the right side, took out that bulb and swapped them. Now the left tail light worked and the right one didn't. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif I'd never seen a bulb that had continuity through the filament, but wouldn't work. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif So I bought two new bulbs and just replaced both sides.

 

[Egon]

Then there was an incident where the day running lights on my truck would not shut off. Had to disconnect the battery. Turns out a $110.oo relay was toast [ common problem apparently ] . Fortunetly the local service manager told me what the problem was and it only took about 5 minutes to replace the gold plated part.

That was after I'd spent about three hours mucking around trying to figure things out.

Egon

 

[scesnick]

When I bought my Dodge diesel i could not figure out how to turn on the factory fog lights ( road lights ) for the life of me.
On my car the were on automatically when I turned the headlights on low beam. ( no switch) so I just figured the truck lights were the same way and just didn't work.

When I showed my buddy my new truck , who by the way, has the same truck, He asked how I liked it,. I said it was great but the lights don't work. He then got in the truck turned on the headlight switch and then pulled that same headlight switch straight out and low and be hold !!! the road lights all of the sudden started working. !!!! Still not living that one down. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[Jstpssng]

Oh, we've all done similar things. Even professional mechanics aren't immune. When I lost the timing chainon my Dakota they replaced it then realised it'd trashed the heads; they found a used set, but then needed new valves. Two weeks later it was almost done when I called and said "ER, just lost a CV shaft in my Celebrity, can you bring the wrecker? Theyy said yeah, but we have some bad news. Your truck's together but it isn't right; probably needs a new piston.
I picked it up and got about 100 yards down the road before I realised what was wrong. When I got home I grabbed my manual and switched the two plug wires that were crossed.

Getting back to my opening statement; the reason I figured out the problem so quickly is because it wasn't the first time the wires in that truck had been crossed. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif