My magical Dakota is playing games with my brain again... Ok, here is the problem this time. I lost my low beams, it was the middle of the week and I didn't have daylight to work with, so I drove a few days with high beams (sorry to anyone I high beamed out there). Two days into my situation, for the heck of it, I switched to low beams when I arrived at home. Go figure, one bulb comes on (rules out both lights blowing out at once). So, I pulled the bad side (driver side) cable/connector off the back of the bulb so I could check for voltage. It appears to be good, 12v on one lead when in high and 12v moves to another lead for low. Did a quick continuity check on ground, looks good. I swapped bulbs, driver and pass, now neither work. Anyone have a situation like this? Please help, thank you.

 

Would it be crazy to run my own wire to a 3-position switch (off, low, high beam) directly to the battery? I have another post about low beam problems, but I am frustrated. Thank you in advance.

 

I have done something similar in past cars I have owned. Just be sure to stick a fuse in there, won't be pretty but you should be alright to do it.

 

Sounds to me like you have a bad ground. Check your ground wiring. One way to test is to run a ground wire from a good grounding source ie. battery, to test.

 

yeah and you really need to load test your ckts. you can have 12 volts or show a good ground with a meter but can it carry a load? think of it as a loose battery cable end. when turn the key on things turn on then you hit the starter and all goes dead. i would highly reccomend a rewire. just adding relays in the harness and use the factory wires to activate the relays. no additional switches and you can later run high wattage bulbs with no probs. just be sure to add a fuse (one for the main wire say 10 ga and 40 amp can go as high as 60 amp and then you can have your lights wired up with 20 amp fuses one for high one for low) i've done this with my high beams so that i could run driving lights off of my high low switch and it's worked beutifully. this just take the load off of the switch and puts it on less wire closer to the bat. just like a later model car would be. if you do this solder and heat shrink every wire you touch.