low beam lights - problem changing from high beam

[El_Freddo]

Hello hello.

My L series is annoying me at night with my low beams. When i change from high beam to low beam the low beam is very dim then about a second passes be for they flash up to usual poor standard. On one occasion they didn't come on at all for a second, i was lucky that i was stationary in a mates driveway.

My question is how do i fix this problem? I don't think its the earth otherwise it would tend to ficker as it ride over bumps.

Any help would be great cos i love my lights at night. Another piece of info that may or may not help is that i have 3 spotties running with the high beams.

Cheers

[Suby Wan Kenobi]

Just check to make sure you havent had one or both light plugs start to fall apart

[El_Freddo]

Thanks Subi Wan, Last time i checked they were all still in one piece, i'll have a look tonight. And if they are starting to fall apart, what do i do then, get a replacement wire mounting part?

I've heard something about the stalk on the steering column becoming dirty at the contact points (?), would this have anything to do with it?

Cheers

[stephendean]

It does sound like the contacts in the stalk control are dirty. I suggest getting some decent contact cleaner from an electronics store. The best way I found to clean the contacts is to remove steering wheel, then remove cowl around steering column, I think the 5 screws on the underneath. And if i remember correctly there is a plastic cover on the contacts that can be pried off. You can then squirt cleaner to your hearts content. Another problem is the springyness of the contacts get weaker, that then means a trip to the wreakers.

[Alex]

check the globes as well!

alex

[timmo]

If you have the spotties wired up properly with a relay then as stephendean says definately sounds like the contacts in the stalk, it happened to me ages ago. I could feel it not engaging properly & was horrible coz the lights would go out when dimming from high beam. I cleaned the gunk out of it and lubricated it & that fixed it.
timmo

[El_Freddo]

cheers guys, i'll get onto the stalk trick!

[El_Freddo]

Well, i havn'd done the stalk trick yet (lack of time), that said on the way home to my pero's the problem got worse so i selected a route where there would be little traffic to bother me. My lights and dashboard were looking very dim.

I got to Carlsruhe, thinking my battery or alternator had packed up (or a loose wire on the alt). Car stalled. no loose wires on the alt. No lights on the dash board when in the on position. Asked attendant at the servo if he could jump start me with something. Didn't work, but found out that my battery had charge (touching jumper lead ends together, i only just thought of this now, but not a good thing to do in the middle of a servo - FYI it was the attendant with the leads, not me).

So it came down to a dead short. Checked the fuses under the dash, all good. Then I thought about my wire splicing exercise i put in the rear end when i changed from carb to MPFI (got an MPFI loom from the rear seat to the front lights). All good there too. So i started to think further and wondered about fuses under the bonnet. I couldn't think of any until i came up with the ones that hang off the side of the coolant bottle. Well here was my trouble. The black one had fried itself (mine was actuallly green ), i couldn't find any spares that i swore i had, so began the game of "which fuseable link do i not need?" I had all four in there as green, one, the fried one, is meant to be black. So i found out which one allowed me to run the engine and lights and drove home.

The head lights were so much better, i don't think i've ever seen them this bright before. I couldn't find my spares so i'm still running a green link These are the next things to get as spares... I'm sure its only a matter of time before this replacement fries itself too.

Cheers

[Suby Wan Kenobi]

I had my fusable link in the Liberty die the other night but there was enough left to twist it back together to get me home so that was lucky for me. But replace the link with the larger black one as soon as you can to stop it happening again

[El_Freddo]

It does sound like the contacts in the stalk control are dirty. I suggest getting some decent contact cleaner from an electronics store. The best way I found to clean the contacts is to remove steering wheel, then remove cowl around steering column, I think the 5 screws on the underneath. And if i remember correctly there is a plastic cover on the contacts that can be pried off. You can then squirt cleaner to your hearts content. Another problem is the springyness of the contacts get weaker, that then means a trip to the wreakers.

Does the steering wheel have to come off to do this? I didn't have the time or the tools to take off the steering wheel but still got in there with some sort of spray stuff, might check out the cleaner your talking about. It worked great and i thought it was solved...

But now my lights when on low beam tend to dim momentarily (and the origianl problem of no low beams from high beam is coming back). This can be at the lights waiting for a green, or on the open road cruising around.

Could there be a dodgy wire, or a relay on the way out? This is a real problem to me as i like having my lights work when i tell them to. It scares the sh*t outta me when rounding a corner at 100 or 90km/h, having to dip my lights for an on coming car and the low beams aren't there... not a fun expreience.

Thought i had it sorted, but now its back again, now accompanied by the dimming i've talked about...

Cheers

[timmo]

I think you can kinda get at the back of it without pulling the steering wheel off but you can get at it much better with the wheel off. I dont know if its causing your problem but i reckon it would be worth a look. Get a puller from supercheap or something (cheap), otherwise have someone pull really hard on the wheel and bash the shaft with a hammer! (probably not recomended)

timmo

[stephendean]

Pulling the steering wheel will help a lot. It sounds like one of the bras spring contact is fatigued. I managed to sort of tweak mine by bending it. But it is frustrating. Mine still flickers very occasionally. I think I will have to replace the whole mechanism one day.

[sven]

Had exactly the same problem - interesting in the dead of night going high to low beam with 3-4 seconds of darkness in between.

Spent too much stuffing about checking connections / wiring etc. End of the day i replaced the stalk with a pearler of a U-Pull-It find (150,00kms, white writing still on stalks) and pesto, all fixed.

than car was stolen, but have salvaged the stalk.

Took 10min and one beer to put in...took an 2 hours to remove from it from the donor car (don't ask, but i one more bloke suggested backing the nut off and hitting it with a hammer or rocking it off i would have gone 'em!)

[Alex]

yeh same problem many times...the worst thing is when they crap themselves and the alarm wont disarm...then it goes off all night long cos the alarm thinks the car is being broken into! that was great!..bloody fusable links..i have wire in mine now..

alex