For a while now I have been driving with just my HID fogs because my headlights (both sides) have not been working. Ive been working 6-7 days week at 12 hours a day for some time so I haven’t had time to look at them.

Then Friday, my e-fan motor looks like it is on the way out and my brakes were scrubbing. On top of that my Viair compressor acted like it didn’t want to fire up and I think I need to replace the cutoff switch again.

What can I say, when it rains it pours.

So I took off this weekend to try to resolve a few things.

So the compressor ended up being a loose connection at the switch. That’s fixed.

I replaced my brake pads so that’s done. But damn those rims and tires are HEAVY!!

I put my clutch fan back on for now. I will get another motor later in the week.

But my headlights I am scratching my head on. These for me have always been high maintenance for some reason. Within a few weeks of first getting them, one of my bulbs went out. I called the vendor I bought them from (here on the board) and was explained the process of the warranty. Well unfortunately I didn’t have the time to ship it off and wait for a replacement so I ordered a pair off ebay for about $10 and had them in 2 days.

Then later I found my headlights would quit from time to time. I checked over everything and found a broken wire or loose connection at the resistors. So I broke out the soldering iron and fixed that. Then later the issue re-occurred but this time it was because water got in the rubber boor on the bi-xenon relay and rusted some of the pins. So I called my vendor only to be made aware they were not in stock at the time. Knowing they all come from China, I couldn’t wait. So I popped out another $30 for a relay and harness off ebay and was here in a few days. I swapped the resistors over to the new harness and was back up and running.

With Twiggy leaving us, I opted to buy another harness from him as a backup (Im learning here on why it is important to have back up parts)

Ok, so now we are up to date. Say morning I go out to check the lights. Keep in mind neither side work so the first thing I do is put halogen bulbs back in and check to make sure it is not power or module related. Thankfully both sides light up both low and high beams. WHEW!! Not computer related.

So I get my meter leads out and jump 12v from my battery to the ballasts and both of them light up the HID bulbs.

So my thought now is ground, relay or harness issues, right??

So I go over all the wires and everything is as it should be but no power getting to the ballasts. As those with HIDs know, there is one 2 pin connector that goes to each ballast. One is black (-) that comes off maybe 6” and has a ring terminal for ground and the other is red which is 12v. So they are pretty easy to test.

But all my wires are secured and look good. So I wiggle the flat harness connector at the relay and nothing. Since my last relay and boot got water in it even as it was mounted vertically, I thought I would be slick this time and wrap the relay and harness in a freezer bag this time and use silicon to seal it. I had to strapped to the drivers side frame.

So when I pulled the relay out of the bag I pulled boot off and guess what? Water came pouring out. That cant be good. Oddly enough there was NO water in the bad so Im assuming the heating up of the relay plus humidity equaled condensation and that’s what built up in there. So some pins were rusted out and completely loose.

So I took my new harness from Twiggy and plugged my spare and new relay into it and added my resistors into that harness. I took the old one down and placed the new one up and guess what? No lights.

By this time I had to stop because it was consuming too much of my day and the wife was giving me those looks.

Aside from taking the old harness apart and comparing the wires from it to the new one, anyone else have any ideas? Im thinking there has to be a wire crossed somewhere in the new harness.

12v is getting to the OEM headlight socket. Both ballasts and HID bulbs work if connected directly to 12v. Im using a brand new relay and harness. I could try the old relay I guess. But other than that, I guess the harness is the last place to look right?