Archived Headlights don't work?! But brights do when held on?

[ScottWright]

I have a '97 Ram that the headlights have suddenly failed on. The dash lights come on fine, and if you hold the brightswitch (turnsignal lever) back, the brights come on, but as soon as you let go of the switch, no lights at all again. Is this the headlight switch, or the multi-switch in the dash? My little brother's car spun a rod bearing on the other side of the state, and I have to go get it tomorrow, but I can't leave until after work, so I need to get them fixed a. s. a. p. Please help!!



(by the way this is my 1500 gas truck, not my 3500 diesel that is in my sig. No dually in the snow!)

 

[RAJohnson]

More than likely it is the Multi Function Switch in the collum. There could be a wire pulled out of the connector due to the tilting of the wheel over time. Remove cover and look at wiring harness, I had to unplug mine and wiggle wires around to get them back on.

 

[McLaughlin]

RAJohnson made a good suggestion. If I tilt the steering wheel wrong, my dims don't work(they work fine if I reposition it). You might want to reposition the steering wheel at a couple of different positions and see if the problem goes away as a quick fix.

 

[LRizzoDiesel]

I had this problem with my Dodge Caravan. Weirdest thing ever. It wound up being the PCM. I guess the headlights are linked to it. Good luck.

 

[ScottWright]

Figured it out...

I would have bet my last dollar that it was gonna be the multi function switch too. But surprisingly it was the headlight switch. I stole one out of my neighbors truck and plugged it in. Works fine. Because the headlight switch feeds the multi switch, I thought the fact that I could hold the brights on, it must be getting power from the headlight switch to make that happen. But turns out, the headlight switch must backfeed or something through another ciricuit when you pull the brights on. I figured it out by pulling the light switch on. Then holding the brights on to see if they worked when held (which they did) But then I pushed the lights back off, and the brights still stayed on when I kept them held back on the turn switch. So I knew that the power wasn't coming from the light switch at that point because I had it turned off, and the brights still worked. Anyway. . . I did a pretty good search, and I found a lot of people that had this same issue, but no one replied back how they fixed it. I hope this post will help someone in the future.



Thanks!

 

[K5IP]

A similar problem in my 95 did turn out to be the multifunction switch, but only the low beam failed.

Rather than replace the multifunction switch, I placed a jumper around the low beam switch connection (located under the stearing columb cover), so low beams would be on whenever the headlight switch was on.

Then, to keep the increased load (when both beams were on) from damaging the headlight switch. I purchased a headlight relay to provide a direct high beam connection to the battery. The relay is triggered by the still operational high beam connection in the multifunction switch. The lower line losses from the shorter connections and having all beams on in the "high" position improve lighting considerably.



Kind of a cheap version of geno's headlight switch, and I did not have to buy a new multifunction switch.

Rog

 

[RLMead]

I have gone through three headlight switches on my 95 until I replaced the wiring for the lights with a harness from Summit auto. Since then for 2 yrs I have had no more problems with the switch. Hope this helps you as much as it did me.



rlmead