Got up at O:Dark Thirty this morning as usual.
Did my Pre-Work routine, as usual.
Gathered up my shit and headed out the door. Just like every other work day for decades.
Got in the Big Red Truck, threw my lunchbox on the seat, slammed the door because the hinge pin bushings are shot and I have been too lazy to replace them, fumbled with the seat belt, fired it up and pulled out the headlight switch to head out.
Except no headlights.
WTF?
They worked fine yesterday all the way to work.
Fumbled around pulling and pushing the switch in and out and still nothing.
Get out and see the tail lights and front parking lights are on. Got back in and tried the High Beams. The headlights came on but only as long as I held the turn signal stalk back in the high beam position. They wouldn’t stay on unless I kept it pulled back against the spring.
Fuck me.
It’s fucking dark and it will be dark long after I get to work.
So I drove all the way in holding the turn signal stalk back.
Get to work, punch in and head to our little hidey hole we call The Shop.
Basically a corner of a huge warehouse fenced in with chain link, a bunch of shelves, desks, cabinets and a sliding door.
Get in the internet, get on Youtube and look up First Generation Dodge Truck, No Headlights.
Several videos appear and I start scrolling, looking to see if there are several with the same issue.
Most common is headlight switch.
I had to wait a couple hours for my local parts store to open. I start work at 6:30 in the morning.
They look it up and don’t have one in stock but they can have it by the afternoon run.
Stop in after work just in time for them to get it out of the truck, $31 and change.
Get home, open the hood and disconnect the battery and then start tearing the instrument cluster bezel off. Fought that sonofabitch for a good twenty minutes after I got all the screws out. It had a bunch of those damn clips around the bottom and I had to pry it out over the steering column without breaking it.
The switch is basically the same as the old Ford ones that I have changed dozens of over the years.
Fiddle fucked around trying to snake it out the bottom between the hood release and the E Brake release. Finally get it out, swap the new one in, re-insert the long triangular stem and knob so I can pull it on and go hook the battery up.
Bigger than shit, the headlights work again.
Fuck around putting it all back together and thanking Jesus that it wasn’t the fucking turn signal switch instead.
The whole time I am sweating my ass off in 90 degree heat but at the same time, thanking Jesus again because it’s supposed to go from 90 today to the low 60’s tomorrow with rain.
It was just plain strange that the old switch shit the bed without any warning what so ever but at least it was a fairly easy repair.
Good job, Phil! I hate doing under-dash work. At least it’ll be easier in the Toyota now that I have the seats out.
Last time mowing the lawn for the year. Go to start the mower and the battery is shot. Jumped with a charger still not going to start. Run to town eight miles away and get a battery install it, hit the key, and nothing. The wire from the battery terminal on the starter to the wire loom is burned off. Replace the wire, ah, the lights come on on the dash. No signal to the starter. Jump the terminals at the starter and it turns over. Pull the steering column apart to check power at the key switch and wiggle some wires prior to checking. The power wire from the starter to the key switch gets hot and starts to melt. Fortunately I hadn’t tightened the ground cable and pulled it off and heard a snap. Fuck it. Winter project. I’ll drag it to the shop later. Get out the other mower and finish up for the year.
Kek! My first thought was turn signal switch!
I’m happy for you because as you allude, that turn signal switch is no fucking fun!!
All I know is for auto electrics there are two types of faults; intermittent, and suddenly.
Since both headlights quit suddenly, and that high beams worked, it can only be the sw commutator.
Seems clear to me. Maybe because I’ve been through this before,
I echo Dr Jim, I detest working under the dash.
I bought a 74 super beetle, my little brother inherited moms old 74 lincoln , both turn signal switches went out within a week of each other. beetle took an hour, town car took that day into late night.Hate Ford to this day.
Tom,
Mid-1970s, we lived across the street from the Ford dealership… a six second stroll.
That franchise included heavy-trucks.
.
I forgot the project vehicle, probably a retired LawEnforcementOfficials Crown Vic or something.
I asked for the part, they needed the VIN.
With the VIN and my bad part on their counter, they couldn’t find any equivalent.
Not ‘obsolete’ or ‘unavailable’, simply invisible.
.
As I am won’t to do, I wired around it.
.
2003, we built our ExpeditionVehicle on a 1996 Ford CF8000.
After replacing two (column internal) ignition switches — one every five years — I drilled a couple holes in the dash, wired a flip-switch and a push-button.
.
To avoid any confusion:
* One is labeled ‘DUMP LOAD’, the other is labeled ‘SIREN’.
Thank the LORD the smoke didn’t leak out. Recharging smoke can be expensive.
Oh, just you wait till it IS that turn signal switch! Which, one day, it’s gonna be. As maga99203 says, those things ain’t no fun at all; a cpl-three days worth of fiddle-fucking around, easy. All the steps you just went through with the other one, plus about eleventy-billion more to boot. Ask me how I know…
There are certain repairs I farm out due to their complexity or my lack of time or experience. That… would be one of them…
I inherited my fathers Dodge truck after he died in ’90. I was staying with my in-laws in WV while I looked for a home in Marietta, OH. I was driving back to my in-laws through the WV backcountry, at 11pm, adn head lights suddenly go out. I hit the brakes, and before I get stopped the lights come back on. I made it to the house safely. Next day, happens again, but it’s dusk, so I have light to play with and found that my father had done some work and he just twisted two wires together to make his fix. I took it apart, re-twisted them together and got home OK. Next day, I soldered them together and never had the problem again. I never did figure out what he fixed with that junction.
Scared me quite badly when the lights went out late at night with a near 500′ drop to my right with no guardrail.
Did you pat the dashboard and say good buddy, good Red Dragon?
“Easy repair”? Nah, it’s lining you up for a doozy the next time . . .
Simple. NOT easy.
Just had to replace the harmonic balancer on my 88 Buick with a 3800 V6, which just turned 68,000 miles (no, that isn’t a typo). Since I had it off, I replaced the original factory installed crankshaft position (hall effect) sensor. Of course the parts place didn’t have a Delco replacement sensor, and sold me a house brand replacement. Got it all together, and the engine ran like shit. Tach jumping all over the place randomly, terrible power/acceleration due to bad tach signal to ECM, misfiring on heavy application of the accelerator.
Piece of shit brand new sensor was defective right out to the box. Went to different parts place next day and got a Delco (Delphi) branded sensor, had to tear the whole thing down again (requires removal of passenger front wheel and inner forward wheel well panel to access the harmonic balancer) and install the (second) new sensor.
Of course the first parts house wants to warranty the faulty part with a replacement of same, but I want a refund as I won’t trust the knockoff garbage again. So far that has gone unresolved, and they may get a brick through their window. A cursory YouTube search reveals all the aftermarket sensors for this application (which probably all come from the same Chinese manufacturer) are unreliable garbage.
Meanwhile, I also have a failing AC refrigerant low pressure cutout switch on the same car, so it keeps locking out the compressor leaving me with no A/C, because it “thinks” the refrigerant pressure is low. Probably be the weekend before I screw with that one. Big surprise, that.
My ’97 Jeep Wrangler did the same thing… almost… The Jeep is set up so that the headlight switch needs to be turned on to at least light the parking lights in order for the vehicle to start, so that switch gets ALOTTA USE. Pulled the switch, turned the key; NOTHING. It was then I noticed that the running lights weren’t on. Turned the switch off and on a couple of times and turned the key; NOTHING. Held he key in the “START” position whist turning the headlight switch on and off and wiggling the switch. The wiggle is what got it going. As with you, the switch gave no indication of its impending failure. It just “went…” Luckily for me, the switch on the Jeep was an old school dashboard mount I could reach from underneath…
Every automotive engineer should be required to spend at least a year as a mechanic before being hired.
Mark,
Canadian semi-truck manufacturer EDISON MOTORS designed their vehicles by mechanics.
The mechanics are also log-haulers, rural back-country fellows with greasy clothes.
You know the type.
.
Zero engineers on staff.
Every automotive engineer should spend a year hanging by his ankles in an independent shop acting as a pinyata with at least one whipping per day for all the stupid things they put in their products.
Bingo
Run the switch through a relay.
The relay carries the load.
Mount the relay on the fender.
.
One of our First Gens burned the headlight switch.
Over three decades and close to a million miles, zero issues.
If the relay croaks, I can swap a replacement in a couple minutes, eyes closed, one hand behind my back.