In The Dark....

[mazgtr]

Noticed the other night driveing home that i now for some reason have no headlights. The rear lights, dash lights and parker lights all still work, and one of my high-beams still does, but the other high beam and both normal headlights aint working. Ive checked the 2 fuses under the hood, and even changed them just to be sure. Ive also changed one of the non working headlight bulbs, but still no good. If i use a bit of speaker wire and wire it directley from the battery straight to one of the headlight globes it will light up.

Just hopeing for anything else i can try or look for before i take it to an Autoelectrician and leave the car and a blank cheque with him....

Thanks guys.....

[arbess]

Maz,

Are you sure you have changed the correct fuse? Can get it wrong sometimes.

[RB30-POWER]

I would say the combination light switch is faulty.

Very common on Nissans due to the design.

Edited December 14, 2005 by RB30-POWER

[blind_elk]

The combo switch will affect the low-beams. Often, in the early stages, if you jiggle the switch a bit you can often get them working. The switch can be pulled apart and cleaned up as a bandaid.

The high-beam problem is probably a blown globe.

[The Dan]

did you check the fuses under the dash also?

[Cubes]

Mines done this.

At first the right low beam would just drop out, give the dash switch a wiggle or switch it off and on quckly and both would come back on again.

After a while both lights dropped out, leaving only high beam and parkers.

I had the auto elect replace the switch. 6 months later it did it again.

I ripped the dash switch out and soldered the contcts together so that if one earths they both earth. You will see what I mean when you pull the switch apart. The problem lies with these little plastic lumps of plastic that are used on a roll type switch to place pressure upon the contact to earth it out.

The plastic appears to melt causing the contact not to make contact properly. Hope that makes sense.

As a bonus the low beam now stays on when I switch the high beam on. Its been like this for 3years without a problem.

I am a little nervous about leaving the high beam on for long periods of time as I fear it may be overloading the switch having both low and high on at the same time.

Edited December 15, 2005 by Cubes

[The Dan]

It shouldn't overload the switch coz the switch only charges the relay...the relay should take all the load.

[Cubes]

Thats exactly my thinking.. BUT why is it generating enough heat for it to melt the little plastic lugs that place the spring loaded pressure on the metal contacts in the first place.

Its rather common for R32's to do in their lightswitch.

The Auto elec, (who owns a rather tweaked R33) said he's had quite a few R32's in, he solution was to completely bypass the origional relays and wire up his own. ~$180 he quoted, bugger that I can do it for next to nothing myself.

Either way, my bodgy mod worked, has for 3years if not more.

The years are flying past, I've had the damn car for 4years now

Edited December 15, 2005 by Cubes

[RB30-POWER]

It all goes through the combination switch on Nissans.

No Relays.

Thats why you have so many contacts on the combination switches and the reason they fail all the time.

As soon as the contacts get dirty, causes high resistance, then it gets hot and melts the plastic.

Nissan skylines, navaras, patrols etc are all the same.

[Cubes]

Conclusion....

Only real way to prevent such a thing happening is to wire in relays.

Wouldn't want the lights to go on a long distant trip interstate or..... :S

[mazgtr]

Being strapped for cash at this time of year especially, i spent a bit of time today and simply rewired the headlights with some new wire and fitted my own inline fuse to a simple toggle switch, as a temporary solution. I ran outta wire though today, so for now the switch is mounted under the hood next to the battery, obviously ill buy some more wire and try and mount the new switch inside the cabin, until i can afford a new Nissan switch.

Just on this fella's, wheres the best/easiest place to get wire from the engine bay through the fire wall into the cabin, i couldnt see anything obvious today, but didnt look to hard yet...

Cheers....

[Cubes]

Remove the switch in the dash and solder away. Its only 2 screws from memory.

[The Dan]

Make sure you wire it up with a relay, not just a fuse. You can pass it through the firewall on either side. You should see a triangular foam blocker in the far corner where the inner guard meets the outer firewall. You can find this on both sides. It's tucked away down in a little hole sorta.

[mazgtr]

I had a look at the stock headlight switch, and i couldnt see how you get it off?? 2 screws??? It looked like you might have to remove all the plastic trim from under the dashboard??