headlight switch
Thread Starter
Intermediate
Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 41
Likes: 0
headlight switch
I fire up the car and turn on the head lights [pull the **** out]and nothing happens but when i reach down and pull the left plastic **** under the steering wheel they pop up fine . What causes this ,bad headlight switch or some other thing ? All the vac stuff has worked fine till now ,i replaced all vac lines and any component that seemed old or frail but that was a long time ago maybe 10 years ago .The car is a 1970 so I'm thinking the switch has gone bad . Can they be rebuilt or just buy a new one ?
This is starting to bug me because i love the the way the lights pop up and wiper door works ,i think it may have been a reson for buying the car in the first place . I even had a 70 Mercury couger xr7 that the head lights turned open but what I really liked about the couger was the rear blinkers .Anyways ,I've got to fix this damn problem .
Maybe this is a silly question ,go a head give me hell ,I'm just being lazy.
This is starting to bug me because i love the the way the lights pop up and wiper door works ,i think it may have been a reson for buying the car in the first place . I even had a 70 Mercury couger xr7 that the head lights turned open but what I really liked about the couger was the rear blinkers .Anyways ,I've got to fix this damn problem .
Maybe this is a silly question ,go a head give me hell ,I'm just being lazy.
Safety Car
Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 4,443
Likes: 326
From: Indy Indiana
your switch has an electrical connector along with a vacumm connection with 2 ports. one port is manifold vacumm and another is a port that connects to your headlight cannisters... either the port setup is broke or a line out to them is broke or disconnected... seems to be the headlight switch, since the override under your steering wheel seems to work.. look like you might have to pull the dash to get a good peek... some people can eyeballl up there from under the dash to see what is going on but you and your hands and your light source up there have to turn into a pretzel to make that happen... good luck..
Drifting
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 1,430
Likes: 8
From: Hamilton NJ
The vac ports on the light switch are pretty solid and most likely aren't the culprit. As said above you probably have a bum or disconnected vac line and a relatively easy fix (jinx!). Best access is by pulling the tach speedo cluster, easily the hardest part of the procedure but not too hard.
You can test the switch by disconnecting the two lines and connecting them to each other with the car running and the override in the normal poisiton...lights should go up. If they do, your lines are fine and the switch is suspect. If they don't it could be the switch or the lines.
Best of luck, Steve
Last edited by Wuttin; Feb 23, 2009 at 12:40 PM.
Burning Brakes
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 1,044
Likes: 0
From: Henrico VA
You've got the opposite of a leak. It almost sounds like you have a clog! When you have a leak, the lights stay up, this is quite a mystery to me and I've fixed my whole vacuum system. I would say listen for abnormal noises around the vacuum system such as hissing. Have a friend stand over your engine bay and do the same with various switches pulled. Also, you can hear hissing the best right after you turn the engine off.
Instructor
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 138
Likes: 0
From: san antonio Texas
trouble shooting the head light switch can be challenging. I went through a host of options and found that the ground wire that comes off the harness that plugs into the switch is attached to the metal frame coming down from the windshield post. This piece of metal can rust and short the ground. You can try removing the ground (you need to get under the dash but you can reach it) and connect it to the hood release bracket, or any other acceptable ground and see if the system works. That bad ground can burn up the headlight switch. so you may have both a bad switch and a bad ground.
