Gremlins-i need help from any electrical gurus out there (1 Viewer)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

One of the grounding junctions for the headlights is behind the gauge cluster. The entire gauge assembly needs to come out to gain access to it. On this model year, the ground junction is the small orange thingy with the green arrow pointing at it.
headlight ground junction.jpg

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This picture below shows the wire junction pulled out a bit to gain access to it. A burnt spot can be seen. This looks mighty suspicious. The blue wires are all connected to each other and the white/black wires are all (supposed to be) connected to each other, but the blue wires are kept separate from the ground wires by this special plug. It is not a single connection spot, but two.

suspect1.jpg


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Picture shown below shows the culprit. Obvious problem. This was the gremlin for all the weird headlight and dash indicator strangeness... one bad ground connection in this junction.

All the white/black wires were removed from this connector and were cleaned up and all joined together and connected with a jumper to a known good ground to test if this was the problem.

It was.


burntPlug2.jpg




Testing grounds
test ground.jpg


All the dash indicator lights then worked perfectly as did the headlights after this ground wire connection was fixed.

>>>>

Ultimately the question may be asked, "why did this happen?"

25 years ago, high wattage H4 halogen headlamps were installed without upgrading the wiring harness with remote relays. The increased amp draw was beyond what the stock wiring and connectors were designed to carry.

The increased current found a weak link in this grounding connector that only uses tiny sliding pins as junctions. The increased resistance at this poor-contact, pin to pin junction created excessive heat, which melted the plastic, creating carbon, coating the metal pin and female connector with insulating contaminates.

Lesson learned from this particular problem:
Always upgrade the lighting wiring harness with remote relays if upgrading to higher wattage headlamps... & it is a good idea to do so anyway if the stock sealed beams are retained.
 
Last edited:
Good Lord, thanks @Output Shaft , held my hand through my exact issue. Thanks again!
 
This thread needs to go into the stickys, @Cruiser Jimmy!!!! @Output Shaft, you out did yourself in making those connections understandable. I applaud you!
 
So, being lazy and not wanting to dig out a schematic, what are the larger blue wires for? I'm guessing the larger brown/black stripe wire is the Headlights?

Could one just connect everything in a Bus Bar like this ?

G12808.jpg
 
Excellent thread - yes it should be a sticky!!
 
I don't know what the blue/brown wires connect to, but as I recall they are separated from the black wires inside that connector. All the black wires connected to each other & all the blue connected to each other.

At first I was thinking the same thing of removing all the black wires & connecting them to a little buss bar connector, but after pulling them out of the connector, I then discovered how short they are and how little room there is to work in there. After chewing over the possibilities, I didn't think I could improve the situation by doing that, so I cleaned up all the pins with fine emory and reinstalled it back together.

Ive heard of guys soldering the whole mess together. That's a lot of wires and which would require a big iron which would probably start melting the insulation.
 
@beno

Is is possible that connector (or equivalent) is available?
 
Thank you! I was having similar problems-no headlights with buzzing relay, turn signal indicators both turning on when headlights triggered, fan super weak, turn signal indicators turning on when fan triggered. The wire connector behind the gauges as shown above was the culprit. Mine looked exactly like the one in the pic, last white ground wire burnt out. So glad this thread was easy to find.
 
Thank you! I was having similar problems-no headlights with buzzing relay, turn signal indicators both turning on when headlights triggered, fan super weak, turn signal indicators turning on when fan triggered. The wire connector behind the gauges as shown above was the culprit. Mine looked exactly like the one in the pic, last white ground wire burnt out. So glad this thread was easy to find.
Welcome to MUD, it's always good to see another member from the Land of Enchantment. Yes, a lot of helpful information here.
 
This problem is now recurring for me. I replaced my writing harness about 2 years ago and now this is happening again. Did any of you come up with a long lasting solution? Not only repairing the little fuse block but also adding the relays to the wiring. I don't really want to buy another used wiring harness. The last one melted some wires pretty far so I replaced it. I hope this time it's isolated to that little block. Is there an easy and good LED headlight I can put in that doesn't draw as much power?
 
This problem is now recurring for me. I replaced my writing harness about 2 years ago and now this is happening again. Did any of you come up with a long lasting solution? Not only repairing the little fuse block but also adding the relays to the wiring. I don't really want to buy another used wiring harness. The last one melted some wires pretty far so I replaced it. I hope this time it's isolated to that little block. Is there an easy and good LED headlight I can put in that doesn't draw as much power?
The two favorite brands are Trucklights and JW Speaker as far as LED assemblies. There's a thread here about getting the JW Speaker LEDs to work with stock wiring and still allow the high bean indicator to work properly without popping the stock fuses. Though I don't have any experience with the Trucklight brand, I personally am a fan of the JW Speaker headlights. Those and the H55F I think are the two most significant upgrades I've ever made to my 62.
 
I put in the 60w, 4x6 LX-Lights from Amazon and they plugged right in. Everything works great and they take way less amp and avoid burning up the common ground behind the inst cluster Ive seen halogens do so often. Thats where all the gremlins have come from that I have seen.

Amazon product ASIN B0744FSQSP
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom