I'd seen this a couple times before, but it goes away before I can track it down. Today, it happened again. I was behind a shiny car and noticed one side of my headlights seemed dim. When I got to work, I popped the hood and wiggled the ground wires and headlight sockets, no help. I then flipped it to high beam and they all worked, and when I flipped it back both low beams were good again. Crap! I hate a problem that goes away before I can locate it!
On my way home, sure enough it was back to dim on the right and bright on the left. The strange part was that the right low beam and both high beams were dimly lit. I was thinking a bad ground, so I measured the voltage at each ground connection with respect to battery minus, expecting zero volts if good, and something between zero and 12 if it was a bad ground connection. They all measured out fine.
This time, I was careful not to try high beams as that made the problem go away each time before. I opened the fuse cover under the hood and when I pressed on the Right headlamp fuse, all came back to working again! Ah Ha! The fuse filament looked fine, but the connector tabs on the fuse were kind of dull gray. I replaced it with a new shiny Littelfuse 15A and it is good again. The old one appeared to be original as it was made in Japan.
I may still have a bad or deteriorating fuse socket, and I didn't change the Left (driver's) headlamp fuse. I did pull the Left one, and it behaves the same way - 3 dim but right low beam bright.
It also seems like previous times were when it was rainy out, like yesterday. Hmmm...
Now, why do the other 3 light up very dimly? If you look at the EWD you will see there is a path through those 3 lights that becomes the preferred and only path when a fuse is out.
I just wanted to share. If you see this, you will now know why too!
Cheers!
On my way home, sure enough it was back to dim on the right and bright on the left. The strange part was that the right low beam and both high beams were dimly lit. I was thinking a bad ground, so I measured the voltage at each ground connection with respect to battery minus, expecting zero volts if good, and something between zero and 12 if it was a bad ground connection. They all measured out fine.
This time, I was careful not to try high beams as that made the problem go away each time before. I opened the fuse cover under the hood and when I pressed on the Right headlamp fuse, all came back to working again! Ah Ha! The fuse filament looked fine, but the connector tabs on the fuse were kind of dull gray. I replaced it with a new shiny Littelfuse 15A and it is good again. The old one appeared to be original as it was made in Japan.
I may still have a bad or deteriorating fuse socket, and I didn't change the Left (driver's) headlamp fuse. I did pull the Left one, and it behaves the same way - 3 dim but right low beam bright.
It also seems like previous times were when it was rainy out, like yesterday. Hmmm...
Now, why do the other 3 light up very dimly? If you look at the EWD you will see there is a path through those 3 lights that becomes the preferred and only path when a fuse is out.
I just wanted to share. If you see this, you will now know why too!
Cheers!
