My low beams work fine.

 

If I push the lever forward to turn the high beams on, all head lights cut off.

 

My high beams work fine if I pull the lever back like I'm going to flash them and hold it.

 

So, I know the bulbs are ok - I've visually checked all fuses and they look ok.  Any ideas?

Sounds like it that blinker switch. Not to hard to replace, but you have to pull the steering wheel

By the way, if you do it, disconnect the battery. You don't want that air bag to deploy by accident

Thanks for the help - I'd love to get my high beams working again but the price of this switch is a bit high for my old, rusty Legacy.

 

Again, thanks for the response!

Any chance the bulbs are burnt out?

 

I had a similar issue with my headbeams recently where one lamp would go out while the other would be very bright. Turned out to be a wiring issue with a new bulb connector I had wired in. My fault and not something that happens spontaneously.

 

You can get a new multifunction switch and plug it in to see if the lamps work BEFORE tinkering with the steering wheel. Test it out before taking everything apart because it might not be the switch. It might actually be the H/L relay gone bad which if it's the original from 1996 then this is totally possible. Cheap and easy to replace.

Get the factory service manual for your car and check the wiring for the dimmer switch. The switch controls the ground side of the lights, so if pulling the stalk makes the high beams turn on the wiring up to the switch is probably Ok, but you could have a bad ground. If the switch really is the problem, you could install a relay for the high beam ground that gets triggered when the low beam ground is taken away.