CUAeroGrad

Greetings all - I have scoured all the posts trying to find a situation just like this and am exhausted... hoping someone can shed some light (pun intended) on my problem. I just got my low beam HIDs installed and the headlamps only come up after I have turned the engine on, turned it off and turn it back on again. They always go down afterwards (even if manually moved up) but never come on after the engine has been turned on once. I have checked all fuses (and upgraded the lights and motors to 20A); verified the resistor is running pos/pos neg/neg (installed on the passenger side assembly btw); verified the battery is fine and still nothing. I can't even get the assemblies to come up when I turn on the highs; all lamps go on when they should (I turn the engine on before I turn on the low HIDs) but the motor won't bring the lights up until I do the funky restart. Any ideas? Could this be a bad resistor? Could it be another electrical gremlin I haven't chased down? Thanks in advance - this one is driving me nuts!

MSG C5

When you installed the HID lamps/ballasts, did you manually raise the headlamps or did you remove the negative battery cable after they were raised? Reason I'm asking is that if you manually raised them, you might need to adjust them accordingly.

CUAeroGrad

I manually raised the lamps; should I disconnect the negative terminal with the lamps down and then reconnect? Thanks in advance!

MSG C5

I would reverse engineer what you did. When I completed my full HID/LED swap, I raised the lights, turned down to the parking lights and then shut off the car and removed the negative battery terminal. That way, I didn't have to mess with manually moving them up/down and I would make sure they were in the same position when I was done.

You can try disconnecting with the lamps down. If that doesn't work, try disconnecting with the lamps up once you make sure you manually adjusted them to full opening.

damilleniumboy

You need either a 194 style bulb wired to the ballast or a harness. The car's electrical system is detecting a low voltage on your low beams because the HID's draw little electricity once they are on, so your buckets stay up.

damilleniumboy

Check this thread out.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...e-awesome.html

mcgilles

do the lights come on and doors not open or do the HIDs not even fire until you do the restart thing?

lately I've been having an issue with the headlight doors not opening the way they should. not always, but enough that its bothersome. I think its mechanical but I'm not sure. I've got another thread but no answers yet.

when I did my first install I had some headlight door issues, turns out my gears were starting to fail, classic C5 problem, it just happened to start showing the signs immediately after installing the HIDs without any issues prior to that. reason I mention this is a bad headlight switch could be your problem or part of it, they are known to go bad over time due to contacts bending so they don't make good contact anymore.

CUAeroGrad

I went back through everything and still no dice. The vendor thinks the resistor may be bad - anyway you folks know of testing those independently? Indeed the lights come on and the doors do not open - the HIDs fire up first time everytime. They always come down when they are supposed to.

And to make matters even more perplexing now the doors don't open at all even after my fancy restart procedure so I am really hoping the resistor is the culprit otherwise I am up a creek.

Thanks all for your help to this point; I'll keep you posted on what the outcome is since it still seems my exact symptoms are different than the typical (even if slightly I don't believe in coincidence with these things!)

mcgilles

C5 headlight doors doors do some very strange things when all is not well for some reason.

where did you get the load resistor? you can check it with an ohm meter. I'm not sure what the resistance should be but if its 0 (dead short) or inf (open) then its no good.
usually the mode of failure when you need a load resistor is the doors open ok but don't close. this is due to the control module thinking one or both of the bulbs is burned out and it leaves the doors open as a reminder that you need to fix the problem.

how are your HIDs powered? do you have a relay harness or are you running off the stock wiring?

you could inspect the wires to make sure none were damaged anywhere, especially if you had to tap wiring somewhere.

do you have the original plastic gears or brass ones retrofitted? when the plastic gears go bad all kinds of odd stuff tends to happen.

do the doors open and close easily/smoothly when you rotate the manual adjusters? try turning the adjusters to pop them open just a small amount then turn on the lights, see if they go the rest of the way up on their own. also try opening them manually and see if they will close on their own.

also make sure you don't have anything physically interfering with any of the mechanical linkages in there. you have more wires in that area than you did before!

if all else fails unplug the HID kit (and resistor) and put the stock bulbs back in (temporarily) see if the headlight problem persists or goes away. obviously if the problem goes away there's something related to the HID kit or how its hooked up. if the problem stays then it was just a coincidence and we have more investigating to do.

is the gray headlight power connector securely attached to both headlights?

my headlight problem is still possibly an issue, no problems since I greased everything but it hasn't been long enough to consider the problem solved. good luck!

0TheRadioFlyer97

What year is your car? I've noticed some earlier model cars seem to go through some kind of "adjustment" period.

Alternatively, you may want to check the seal on your headlight control module. it's a small black box under the passenger headlights bolted to the wheel well. It's supposed to be weathersealed, but the seal kinda sucks and when water gets in there, the headlights act goofy.

jrprich

I suggest you disconnect the HID ballasts and then turn on your headlight switch.......
do both doors go up when the HID ballasts are disconnected? if so then the issue is with the HIDs, not your headlight motors. If not then you likely have headlight motor issues.

Did you use a separate battery based relay wiring harness or just the OEM wiring? I always use a larger gauge separate battery based relay wiring harness to insure full voltage to any high output lighting.

CUAeroGrad

I just spent the last few days running down all the issues mentioned and finally got to disconnecting the ballast on one side (one variable at a time!) and voila when that one is disconnected the lamps come up and down as they should. So clearly someting wrong with the kit.

I received a new resistor from the vendor and it didn't change anything so that is ruled out. I also have the metal gears in place so that is ruled out. All the wiring looks clean (no nicks, damage, etc) so I can pretty safely rule that out (granted you never really know for sure...)

My car is a '99 and something else interesting that I found out - it's a Canadian model. So now I am wondering if that has something to do with it in that I know on mine I cannot disable the twilight feature so thinking there is something else in the lighting circuit different...?

I used the stock wiring since the vendor stated (and supported by many other folks on this forum that installed this kit) for low beams only I wouldn't need any larger gauge or powered interface.

I checked the headlight control module and it is clean and in good shape- all sealed, all contacts good, etc. However, one other item came up in testing that might be contributor. Seems the switch in the light control stick is acting funky - I never used that in testing since I wanted to keep the variables at a minimum and just test like I operate; ie always put the e-brake down which triggers the lights. So I started playing around with the stick and it triggers the highs fine and the flash to pass but I can't turn the lows on. Again not sure if this is related since it still comes back to the highs working fine and not the HIDs.

So I am basically back to the kit itself as the culprit since the stock lamps work fine (other than the aforementioned occasional control stick issues). Even though the vendor and other forum members have not needed additional power leads to the HIDs, is that my next step?

Thanks again for all your help - one full week of troubleshooting and I am back to the start but at least killing off one potential issue at a time!

mcgilles

I'd say check that on the need for a better power supply. even with my 35W low kit I needed to add supplemental power even though most vendors say you don't. I didn't have a problem with the doors not closing, but I did have the occasional no go on one side effect, and the flickering, and the flickering and ultimate failure on one site. when I would go over bumps sometimes I would lose both lights. one night I stopped at a gas station to fuel up, after restarting neither light came on. flipped the switch back and forth a few times and nothing. eventually they did start working. I got to work on a relay harness right after that. they work much better now. I say you do need a harness. they may work most of the time, but they won't work all the time on stock wiring unless you are one of the lucky ones. it seems to be pretty hit or miss on the forum.

add the harness, the lights will work better and more efficiently, and you eliminate that as a possible cause for your problems.

CUAeroGrad

Almost there...! I got the battery relay kit installed and everything was working again.. for a time. After many cycles on/off, lamps up, down, flash to pass, etc I shut down the car but this time the lights went off but the lamps didn't go down. I'm guessing I still need the resistor in line somewhere? Getting close - I would rather have my lights stuck up so I can drive at night then stuck down!

CUAeroGrad

Alright one more thing down... the twilight sentinel is doing something whack so I'm going to disable that (Canadian model so I don't have the luxury of just turning it off...) I'll keep everyone posted!

CUAeroGrad

Finally got it! So rundown was this: I did indeed need the battery power kit (even though the vendor stated that wouldn't fix the problem) and then the twilight sentinel feature was screwing things up further. Being a Canadian car, I couldn't disable it so I just click the e-brake up a couple of times, turn the lights on manually and then put the e-brake back down and everything works. Gotta love Chevy's logic with the whole headlamp current/interlock setup. After going through this I found the system could have been much simpler from an engineering standpoint but cest la vie. Thanks to all for your input and feedback - I can finally see the road in front of me!