Lighting conundrum

[29tudorsedan]

Hi all,

I'm working through my wiring, I've had the Tudor since July and had lighting problems with it, while going through everything I kept finding things that had come up over the years (about a 30 year old frame off restoration) and hadn't been fixed completely right, upon getting most things sorted I ended up well...."letting the smoke out of the wires"...fried the harness...so I just went with a new wiring harness and switch, my lights are much more consistent, but now here's where I'm at...

Currently with the lights off, brake light, horn work well, at 7 o'clock parking lights are good, along with everything else, but in the two headlight positions I get lights for about 10 seconds and them everything goes dead until about a minute later in which I get everything back until I go to turn the main headlights on. This occurs both running and off, the car has halogen headlights and a 12v alternator.

My question is should my next step be to look to the headlight socket for the source of the problem since the rest of the wiring is new and parking lights don't give me issues? Would it be better to go back to the standard setup either with incandescent or the halogen which fit into the standard bulb base?

Thanks for your help, sorry if this was wordy! I'll try to be more direct, just wanted to give a clear description of the issue.

Anthony

[Geo. H]

What you have should work. I think you'll be better off to diagnose the problem rather than just keep changing stuff in hopes something different will work.

[Mike V. Florida]

Originally Posted by 29tudorsedan

Hi all,


My question is should my next step be to look to the headlight socket for the source of the problem since the rest of the wiring is new and parking lights don't give me issues? Would it be better to go back to the standard setup either with incandescent or the halogen which fit into the standard bulb base?

Anthony

Good place to start. And while I'm not a fan of Haolgen light it should make no difference in troubleshooting. Save your money and keep what you have.

Do you have a fuse or circuit breaker in your car? I'm a bit puzzled about your. "I get lights for about 10 seconds and them everything goes dead until about a minute later in which I get everything back...".

[pat in Santa Cruz]

I would suspect repro bucket sockets. The contacts are rounded, unlike the flat contacts originally used. The springs are weaker than the originals. The result is that the contacts move over to one side, shorting out against the socket wall, or contacting each other or both beams at once. This results in high loads when 4 filaments are lit, over heating the socket, bulb and wires. If it shorts against the socket, your wires toast up until the lights go out or you have a fire. I'm not sure why yours go out and them come back on.

I prefer to re wire original sockets, but finding them isn't always an option. In that case, cut off the repop contacts, run the wires up through the small springs in the socket and wire nut them to the leads from the bulb sockets. Leaving the springs in place and using the original or plastic repop spacer places spring tension against the conduit bezel so it will stay in place when twist locked to the socket.

[TinCup]

Eliminate what it is not. Remove the right headlight and see what happens. If nothing reconnect and repeat with the left. By eliminating what it is not you will discover what it is. Check the sockets and see if they show sits of shorting.

[Tom Wesenberg]

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Here you can see the problem Pat just talked about. I'd use a Dremel to grind around the contacts to make the diameter smaller, so they can't short against each other, or the housing. The top picture shows the repro sockets used with the 2 bulb headlamp, while the bottom picture shows original sockets and wire used with the single bulb headlamps.

As far as the lights coming back after a matter of seconds, that sounds like you installed an aftermarket fuse holder and have a thermal circuit breaker instead of a regular fuse. Halogen bulbs draw a lot of amps and you may have a short or the bulbs might be drawing more amps than the thermal circuit breaker is rated. Are you using a thermal circuit breaker?

[TinCup]

Tom I did the same thing to the repro sockets I installed on my coupe. Something is heating up and grounding out here.

[Harold]

When putting in a complete new wiring harness in the process of restoring my 29 Tudor with new repro headlight sockets, I put a short piece of shrink tubing around one of the light contacts, such that when you installed the bulb it would squish down between the contacts and keep them seperated. I also hard wired the sockets
to the wiring harness using the bullet connectors and fitted a light spring in the conduit connectors so they could be disconnected if needed.

[29tudorsedan]

Originally Posted by Mike V. Florida

Good place to start. And while I'm not a fan of Haolgen light it should make no difference in troubleshooting. Save your money and keep what you have.

Do you have a fuse or circuit breaker in your car? I'm a bit puzzled about your. "I get lights for about 10 seconds and them everything goes dead until about a minute later in which I get everything back...".

I don't have a fuse or circuit breaker, for me when the lights go off, they won't come back on until I pull the switch apart the the base of the steering column secured by the bale, once I reinstall it, I'm "reset" basically

[29tudorsedan]

Originally Posted by pat in Santa Cruz

I would suspect repro bucket sockets. The contacts are rounded, unlike the flat contacts originally used. The springs are weaker than the originals. The result is that the contacts move over to one side, shorting out against the socket wall, or contacting each other or both beams at once. This results in high loads when 4 filaments are lit, over heating the socket, bulb and wires. If it shorts against the socket, your wires toast up until the lights go out or you have a fire. I'm not sure why yours go out and them come back on.

I prefer to re wire original sockets, but finding them isn't always an option. In that case, cut off the repop contacts, run the wires up through the small springs in the socket and wire nut them to the leads from the bulb sockets. Leaving the springs in place and using the original or plastic repop spacer places spring tension against the conduit bezel so it will stay in place when twist locked to the socket.

This is what I ran into when looking through the setup when I started working on the lights, one of the flat contacts on the spring loaded connections had come off, and the previous owner had soldered it back on, but without crimping the connector to the wire, so one of the three contacts stood out from the others and no amount of convincing would get all three to sit connected when plugging the wire in, what I ended up doing was pulling the insert out that held the springs and wires and just put female bullet connectors on the wires, plugging them into the male bullet ends from the lighting harness

[29tudorsedan]

Originally Posted by TinCup

Eliminate what it is not. Remove the right headlight and see what happens. If nothing reconnect and repeat with the left. By eliminating what it is not you will discover what it is. Check the sockets and see if they show sits of shorting.

That was what I was considering as a next step, this will be the first thing I try next, I'll post what comes of it

[bill44]

I would take a jumper with alagator clips on both ends, and attach one end to a good ground. Hook the other to your socket bracket and see if that makes any difference. A bad ground will make all sorts of problems. I have a seperate ground wire to each head lamp bucket and no problems with halogen lights.

[jmeckel]

The best way to start working on ANY electrical problem is to get yourself a good Volt Ohm meter Analog or Digital. Read the instructions and understand how to use it. Then make yourself a good clip lead wire out of 14 or 12 gauge stranded wire about 10 - 15 feet long, so that you can clip on to the battery, on the side that you have hooked to the frame and reach any part of the car you need to. At that point you have a good reference point to take voltage readings from. (You need the long wire to you can go to the front or back of the car.) In this case you are having headlight problems, so check that you have 6 volts (or 12 volts depending on your battery setup) to the lights, check as close to the bulbs as possible. If this is ok, then check to make sure that you have a ground at the socket, you can tell if the ground is good by when there is voltage to the light, and the light bulb is good and properly installed there is NO voltage on the ground side, any voltage over maybe .25 volts or so means you have a bad ground. You can also use the known good ground on the long clip lead you just made to clip onto the sockets ground side and see if the bulb lights.
In both cases, (no voltage or bad ground) you need to start at one end and work towards the other, no short cuts. For example, if there is no voltage to the bulb, go to the 1st connection nearest the bulb and check for voltage, keep working towards the switch, then past the switch all the way to the battery. At some point you will find that you had voltage, than you lost it, the problem is between those 2 points. Another thing to remember you need to keep the "load" ie light bulb in the test with all switches ON, many times a wire or connector without a load will show voltage, however it has what is called a "high resistance" problem, meaning there maybe voltage with no load, however under load it can't pass any, or very little current.

Most of the time the problems are at connection points, however a wire can be broke any place along it, without the covering of the wire looking bad, just something to be aware of. Switches and fuse holder can also cause problems, do not over look them.

Another point, do not try this type of trouble shooting with a test light type of tester, they MAYBE ok to check a fuse or basic light bulb problem, in my opinion they are very little help with any real electrical troubleshooting. I can't tell you how many times in my electrical career I have been called in to fix a problem that the original person tried to troubleshoot with a test light and failed.