no headlights!

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donkeychomp
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no headlights!

Post by donkeychomp » Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:17 pm

I have side lights and high beam but no dip beam...checked the bulbs all ok as are the fuses. Bad earth maybe? Any ideas?

Cheers, Alex
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Edweird
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Re: no headlights!

Post by Edweird » Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:31 pm

I had this problem, but only on the driver's side.
Assuming yours in Jap-built:
The two headlights are wired in parallel, rather than individually. When mine went it was the wire joining the two headlight dip-beams together. Sounds to me like the wire going from the dash to both bulbs, which forks on the passenger side.
The bulbs in mine are earthed at the front of the car and sounds like yours are too, as you still get high-beams.

Do you have a multimeter? If you do, that'll help you work out which colour wire operates dip-beam (the colour scheme of wires seems pretty random from one SJ to the next). You then need to trace it back and look for anything obvious.

I'm sure other folks will have better advice. I'm an electronics student, not an experienced SJ vet, but feel free to ask anything.
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donkeychomp
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Re: no headlights!

Post by donkeychomp » Thu Sep 15, 2011 8:39 pm

Ta for the tip...my SJ is Spanish though! I will check it out, thanks again!
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Edweird
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Re: no headlights!

Post by Edweird » Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:38 pm

Okay. Well, if they work the same as mine then it'll be alright. I'll see if I can find a diagram for a Spanish Samurai and compare it with mine.
There's three ways of doing things:

The right way,
The wrong way
And my way, which is like the wrong way but faster.

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ROBBIE
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Re: no headlights!

Post by ROBBIE » Fri Sep 16, 2011 10:05 am

on the spanish model 1 wire to each headlight. on mine the passenger side wire melted so i connected a wire from drivers side. but eventually i developed the same problem as you have, so now they are wired in separately to the rest of the lights with a switch on the dash
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