Ok, here's the deal ... I changed out my heater core, and had most of the dash appart. Then I head home for Xmas, and after more than 11 hours on the road, suddenly my brights come on and won't shut off. I cannot even turn off the low beams with the headlight switch, however, if the ignition is off, the lights stay off.

 

So, I took part of the dash appart again, checked all the switches by isolating them, and I tried using several other hi-beam switches (thankyou Mudrat) and ignition switches with no change. I found that with virtually everything behind the instrument display un-plugged, I still have this short that keeps the headlights on as soon as you turn on the ignition.

 

Is there anything left to try other than simply tracing the headlight wires back and looking for a short? I am hoping there is some relay or other simple thing to check.

 

P.S. I have 100w high beams made by hella (factory replacement) and I have tried isolating the wiring to these lights as well with no change in results.

 

Any help would be great!

Well first lets play guess the vehicle?

 

Now assume it's an 85 Brat

 

We will now look to how the lights are wired

 

The positive battery voltage via the ignition switch controlled lighting relay,

is applied to the common terminal of the hi/lo lamps.

 

For a filament to illuminate it must also have a ground or negative battery connection.

 

So I would start looking for wire chaffing or shorting to ground anywhere the wiring harness

can come in contact with the body.

 

Sometimes in these difficult to find problems areas

a little shake rattle and roll of the harness can cause the culprit to expose itself.

 

I would connect a sounding device (12v buzzer or similar) across the head lamp terminals

I can then hear if I have found the offending point of interest.

 

Hope this helps

Well first lets play guess the vehicle?

 

Now assume it's an 85 Brat

 

DOH!!! yes it's my '85 brat :-p

 

hmmm so I'm guessing that i need to hook-up the buzzer at the headlight plug? and that it will be going off untill I find the trouble spot and then it would go off once it's no-longer being grounded?

right you are Flyb0y

 

a lot easier than trying to watch to see if they flash

when the short is found

sweet! thx!! I now have a game plan ... I'm gonna bet that when I went diving into my dash to change the heater core that I disturbed some old wiring that is now grounding ... doh!

 

Now, if I were to just trace back the wiring from the headlights, wouldn't this also accomplish the same thing? Or can the short be anywhere in the harness to cause this?:-\

"Now, if I were to just trace back the wiring from the headlights, wouldn't this also accomplish the same thing? Or can the short be anywhere in the harness to cause this?"

 

 

 

yes..yes

yikes!! yes to both then ... hmmm well, I guess I'm off to radio shack for a 12v buzzer ... thanks for the advice!

Hey Dayn This is Jerry, on your brat there is 2 relays one for each side. The relays are located by the fuse box and they are round and silver in color. most likey with your 100w lights you melted the relay shut and that is why your lights don't turn off. I have alot of spares if you need any just let me know. Thanks Jerry

Hi Jerry, I thought about that

 

but

 

Dayn says they turn off with the ign switch

 

if the relays were fused they would not turn off

 

the power comes from a fusible link

 

the relay control comes from the ign switch

Hey Dayn This is Jerry, on your brat there is 2 relays one for each side. The relays are located by the fuse box and they are round and silver in color. most likey with your 100w lights you melted the relay shut and that is why your lights don't turn off. I have alot of spares if you need any just let me know. Thanks Jerry

 

Good advice, but I think I have head-off this possibility, I have 30A in-line self-resetting breakers at each 100w light.

 

Here's something tho ... I noticed when this initially happened, that when I un-plugged the left light that the right light went out and the left one was still going!

 

I am now wondering if it could be as simple as the extra leads that I made to tie-in the hella lights to the stock plug-ins might themselves be grounding?

***UP-DATE***

 

Ok, so I didn't have the hellas wired in properly after all ... going to get new headlight relays for under the dash, and then 2 relays for the hellas (one one each light thus powering them directly from the battery with the normal power wire now serving as the "on" terminal for the relays) so, that might fix the problem after all! I'll keep ya all posted

** UP - DATE **

 

 

New headlight relays, no change .... guess it's back to the orginal plan ...

If you have the wrong bulbs in the back of the car it can somehow make the lights stay on. I know this because I stuck the wrong bulb in just for late night drags and I had to pull the bulb out to kill the lights.

WOOOOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!! :banana:

 

Now I have something in common with the cops in the Loraina Bobit case!!

 

"I FOUND IT!!" (In my case, the electrical problem, in their case the Mr. Bobbit's "missing" Mr. Happy!! )

 

Your never gonna believe this, but I found that the left high beam ground (on the light side) of the hella high-beam lense was some how closing the circuit for the low beam. (I had noticed this at the begining but it didn't sink in:rolleyes: )

 

I then removed the hella light and discovered that the outside had corrodid, and with my Ohm meter that the outside of the light was connecting to the ground, thus completing the cuircut and turning them on as if I had flipped the switch!

 

Now I guess I need an old innner-tube or something to isolate the outside of the light ... but the light gets pretty hot ... grrrr!!! well at least nothing else was burned or damaged (I HOPE )