Recntly, while driving home, my Maverick's directional signals and headlights went out simultaneously. I thought that maybe I had blown a fuse. A few days later, they both came back on, but within 5 minutes, the headlights went out again, but the turning signals now work fine, and my tail-lights have been working fine throughout this whole ordeal. Any ideas on what my problem could be, and maybe provide some troubleshooting tips to save me a trip to a mechanic? My car is a 1971 Ford Maverick, 2.8 inline v-6. automatic transmission.
May be the headlight switch.........Can you post a pic. of your "inline v-6";never seen one of those.
The headlight switch has an internal 12 amp circuit breaker. If you got a chafed wire grounding out somewhere, it will cause the headlights to shut off.
Yeah, I would suspect the switch, too. Actually there are two breakers in there. One for the headlights and one for the rest of the exterior lights and horn (!). If you've added any extra lights (Shelby tailights in my case) to your car they tend to burn the breakers. After having to replace my switch twice I finally opened up the switch and shorted out the breakers with bus wire, then added 3 external circuit breakers. One for headlights, one for brake lights, and one for the rest of the lights. That was 12 or 13 years ago and I haven't had a problem since.
Gah, early mornings'll do it to ya, just now noticed my error, it's an inline 6 cylinder, not an inline v-6. LOL My headlight "switch" is just a silver pull knob, directly above the windshield wiper controls. So, do I need to be looking at my fuse box, or what? I only have a very rudimentary knowledge of car maintenance, so bear with me, please.
