ok so im driving at night and all of a sudden, my headlights go out on me. now i figured its a short somewhere , i replaced the headlight switch and the dimmmer switch in my 76 maverick, and did a little work in the dash as well. now what i want to know is how to fix this without havingto re-wire the whole thing, like a fuse or something. hopefully not re-wiring
There should be a relay in the headlight circut somewhere,just another thing to check.I also had the dimmer do that to me too.
If you replaced the light switch then the circuit breaker was replaced at the same time (its in the switch). if it happens without the high beams on then the dimmer is not likely the cause. Since you already replaced those items and it is still doing the same thing there are two things left that might cause the lights to go out. It is not likely that both filiments are breaking at the same time so it has to be the wire from the switch to the lights. or from the fuse panel to the switch. To find out which one it is just disconnect the wire from the switch to the lights and replace it with a TEMPORARY 16 gauge wire from the switch to the lights. If that solves the problem then you know that you have a short (might be intermittent) in that wire. If you still have the problem then you know the problem is in the wire from the fuse panel to the switch. Either way just repair the affected harness and you have the problem solved. To repair the harness just cut the wire at both ends where it goes into the harness and tape a new wire to the harnessto replace the old wire. BINGO! you fixed it and if you do a nice job of wrapping the new wire to the harness it will look like new stock!
I had the same problem a while ago. The troublemaker was the license plate lamp wire was pinched and grounded. So check all the wires for that!
