Headlights dim

[aznturboboi]

After a couple of months of not driving her I noticed that last night my headlights were really dim and the highbeams have a little glow in the light during lowbeam, but highbeams work normally when switched. I just replaced the battery and I am currently running sylvania silverstar lights, which I put in a year ago and they were awesome. After screwing around with the multimeter I found that the highbeam is giving out 2 volts with switch in lowbeam, which explains the slight glow in the light. I got 11.8v when unplugging the lowbeam and plobed the connector (all readings taken when car is off). When car is running scanmaster shows 13.8 volts. I tired to clean up the grounds on the passenger fender but still nothing. Any ideas on what the problem could be?????

Thanks in advance.

 

[hesermon]

This is little more than a guess but try unhooking all four bulbs, with the switch on plug them in one at a time. If you have a short from a wire being damaged or a damaged or corroded connector you should be able to single it out this way. Does the high beam bulb glow if the low beam on the same side is not plugged in? Sounds like a grounding problem either at the bulbs or at the switch, but I'm betting it's in one of the connectors.
Good luck.

 

[aznturboboi]

Thanks hesermon for the response. When I unplug the low beam, the high beam on the same side goes off. I noticed that when I unplug the high beam the low beam seems to get slightly dimmer and when I plug the high beam back in the low beam gets slightly brighter. Looking at the connectors they dont look burnt just have some old contact grease. I also tried cleaning the contacts for the switch that plug into the car, but that was no help. Is there another ground for the headlights? I already tried cleaning the three wires on the right fender, the one on the left side fender and the one on the firewall. Ill try to clean the connectors/contacts to the light tommorrow.

 

[Victory]

When this happened to me it was the ground by the battery on the fender that came loose.

Check it out.

 

[Chuck Leeper]

Firewall plug???
Do a voltage drop test.....

 

[Roger]

I ran new/heavier grounds to the headlights.

I use 100w lights & the original small wiring cannot support the larger lights. I use relays & # 12 wire everywhere for any low current applications. I ran a #2 from alt to batt.