Greetings.

My 89 BII might just be haunted.

OR

I have a short somewhere.

After a few minutes of driving, sometimes the headlights just go black all on thier own. sometimes I can cycle the headlight switch and they return, most of the times they do not. If I pull the column HIBEAM bar towards me and hold it in, the brites stay on. If I push it away to keep the brites on, nothing happens.

Sometimes after a couple of minutes the low beams return, otherwise I am driving home with my left hand holding the HIBEAMS in. (makes for interesting driving since its a manual)

Any ideas where this short could be? Could it be just a faulty headlight switch? curious if anyone else ran into this before.

BTW just hit 190k on this bronco. sweet

 

I'd try checking wireing on the low side first. I had a pinched wire from the battery shifting once and that shorted out the lows beams. Other than that, it could well be a bad switch.

 

Sounds like you need a new headlight switch, the switch has a set of points in them that sometimes get burned, then they overheat from bad contact & open causing your lights to go on & off as they heat & cool. Although they usually cycle on & off fairly quickly.

 

> Could it be just a faulty headlight switch?

Yes, but, doing what you are doing has probably melted a contact in the turn signal switch too. You have to pull both, otherwise you will risk nuking the good headlamp switch when you replace it. If the headlamp switch has a melted or watery looking connector, there is a good chance the switch in the column is bad now too.

It will be fairly obvious on the high/low beam switch because the wire connector will be melted.

 

The headlight switch and it's connector are notorious for this problem eventually. I wound up having to replace part of the park light wire and using a female blade disconnect and butt connector to negotiate a permanent fix after nearly nuking my new headlight switch. If you'd rather buy a pigtail and replace the connector in full, that works too. I didn't see any problem signs on my multi-function switch in the column - I must've caught it before it got too bad or it was the fact that it was the park light circuit and not the headlight circuit that was faulty and already burned a little. I'd go ahead and check it all out just to make sure.

BTW, the '89 I recently bought has ~204k on it, but is the possible victim of a bad mechanic or a cracked head. Won't know until I get back to the States and go pick it up and tear into it. I'm hoping it's a blown gasket due to re-use of the head bolts, but if not, it's time for WP heads and a few other things

 

My passenger side has started turning off by itself on the low beams, but I found out why. Turns out the original owner installed the 2 100-watt halogen off-road lights by splicing into the low beams direct from under the column. I took the pull-**** out to look at it when I was installing some new gauges and I've got wires melted all over the place back there and oxidizing. It stinks, now I have to find out a way to replace all of these wires.

 

Rewire the headlights through relays and have the headlight switch operate the relays. You can even buy kits for this; it's a piece of cake.

 

Does anybody have a pin-out for the switch? It looks like I might have to go this route. If I find out anything, I'll let you guys know.

 

> now I have to find out a way to replace all of these wires.

Do you need the harness in back of the dashboard to the headlamp switch?

 

They sell new pigtails with the connector for the headlight switch - that should help in repairing that part of the issue. I agree, might as well 'upgrade' to a relay-operated setup on your headlights. The factory wiring harness just isn't very forgiving for higher-powered lighting. I'd never wire up driving lights to those circuits UNLESS it was via a relay. Hope you get 'er figured out, Romer! Same goes to you, Wild!