Headlights went out - relay?

[Onyxyth]

My headlights decided to stop working tonight. The motors work (go up and down fine) and the parking lights work.

If I manually trip the headlight relay (by opening it and connecting the little lever) the headlights will work. Does that mean it's positively the relay?

I'm thinking yes but, I know a lot of people have trouble with the retainer relay in the trunk, and I'm not positive what it's effect is.

[ozzie]

If I manually trip the headlight relay (by opening it and connecting the little lever) the headlights will work. Does that mean it's positively the relay?

No, it means it's either the relay, the signal to the relay, or the signal's ground. Check the manual for which pins are signal and ground, and then check them.

I think the relay in the trunk only affects the headlight motors, not the lights themselves.

[Onyxyth]

I couldn't find a pinout or similar in the manual last night, I'll check again though.

The two pins closest to the front had 12v constant to them.
One pin had 1v then dropped to .5v when I turned the parking or headlights on.
The other one had nothing - and I'm not sure how to test for ground with my multimeter.

 I'll report back, I'm going to the junkyard to grab some relays.

[Onyxyth]

Well it's not the headlight relay, I'm pretty sure it's the retainer relay. It was pretty corroded, I found the pinout for the relay and used some leads across the pins and sure enough the lights popped on.
They work with the switch and everything. I rigged it up for now I'll post pics later (posting from phone now)

Edit: Here's what I ended up doing. As far as I can tell this wires the switch on the stalk directly to the relay. Only downside is the lights stay on after I open the door, but I usually turn them off manually anyway.

[TransAmBandit]

Bump because this picture just helped me figure out why I had no headlights on my GTS Vert!

[Onyxyth]

Nice I'm glad it helped!

I just permanently soldered the blue and red wires together and it's been fine since October when I posted that.
Just have to remember to turn your lights off!

[corax]

I had the same problem and wanted to share another solution.  90% of the pictures I found of the Headlight Retainer circuit board showed that they had failed in the exact same way.  It seems water leaks into them or condenses into one side of the module and causes the printed circuit board to corrode.  Once there's an open electrical circuit, the headlights go out.  This was mine, you can see the corroded circuits near the top, this is right behind the spade terminals



My fix was to remelt the solder using a  fine tip butane iron and rebuild the circuits with 22ga wire.  It has to be very low profile and spaced slightly away from the edge of the board or you won't be able to snap the module's cover back together

[bowserpower1]

 :biggrin:Just looked  this up to help me fix my headlight problem.  thank you so much