Hi/Low relay for headlights., Not working or bad colum switch? Options

[Air_Cooled_Nut]

Okay, got my fogs to work. Just needed to rotate the glass/bulb housing about 1mm clockwise (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) 35w bulbs...hmm...not very bright...maybe I'll put 55w in later. Oh, to remove the glass bezel you undo the retaining screw at the base, pry the bottom of the bezel away from the housing, then lift the bottom up and swing away from the top. The top has a catch on the inside that the bezel hooks on to (very much like a stock VW T3 headlight trim ring is attached). I'm also in the process of disconnecting them from the headlights so they operate independantly with the ignition switch ON.

Now, attached is a scan of two relays. The silver one came with the car, has part number 111 941 583A on it, and when installed the low beams are on. When I hook up the new relay (supposed to be a replacement unit) the lights do not come on. With either unit I cannot switch between hi/low beams. You can see the circuit diagram on them and they are different (great). I did try jumpering 56 to 30 and still no success.

Any ideas? Why doesn't the new black unit work? Does it sound like my hi/low column switch is bad (and how hard is it to replace)? I do have several shop manuals to help if I need to replace the column switch but, geez, I really don't want to...

[redshift]

Disscussion on another board (Pbird)

I had the exact same problem a couple of months ago. It turned out that the square metal relay that is under the dash needs to be grounded very well. It has a lousey design where it clips into place & the clip is the ground. I took the relay out & bent the clip so that it would have a nice snug fit - that worked!

Hope this helps.

Vern

And

Sounds like symptoms I had a couple years back. I replaced the relay and that fixed the issue. If the original silver relay that Mark's talking about has been replaced, you might instead have a square black plastic relay instead.

If you do wind up replacing the original silver relay, you'll notice that the contacts on the later black plastic one are configured a little differently. You'll have to jumper a couple of contacts. Let me know if you go this route & I'll look up the diagram & send it to you.

Good luck!

Mark

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread....threadid=130293

M