NickTheTrick
Member
Story Time:
So I was driving home late about a month and a half a go, and my headlights flickered and cut out completely. Murphy's Law indeed. I was 45 minutes from home on an empty highway. It seemed the only way I could get some light was to manually pull the headlight switch toward myself activating the high-beams. So that is what I did; you can imagine how fun it was driving once I got to the city, manually blinding everyone with my high beams and trying to shift gears without letting the switch go.
I pulled my dash apart and found that my headlight switch was burnt up and melted along the bottom (the hot, and headlight wire terminals); also the headlight and hot wire terminals in the headlight plug connecting to the multi-function switch was also melted on one side. This resulted in the destruction of my recently replaced multi-funtin switch. So temporarily, I cut the multi-function headlight plug and put a male terminal on the low-beam wire and a female on the hot wire for light, went to the junkyard for good plugs and terminals, and ordered a switch. I figured I had a bad connection on one of the terminals or something.
A few days later I spliced in a good used headlight switch plug and multi-function plug along with the terminal ends that were fried. It did fine but I smelled burning plastic, so a few days later I pulled pulled the plugs back out and the headlight switch plug was melted again. So i figured I left the corrosion one the Switch terminal itself. I then filed the terminals with terminal files until they were clean. I spliced in a second set of good terminals to be safe AND put dielectric grease in the hot holes.
I left it all loose in case it happened a THIRD time and for about a week, it was fine. I sniffed the vent right on top of the switch every time I used it or even got out the car. So it was fine for about a week and a half; I put it back together.
I was driving home tonight after doing some CHRISTMAS (screw Xmas) shopping and I definitely smelled that plug burning up. I sniffed the vent and it is definitely getting too hot.
Is there anything that anyone can add? I am not sure where to go from here. I made sure the connections were solid and clean and coated everything with dielectric grease. I hate pulling the dash and stuff apart over and over because of its age, so I'm stumped.
I'm sick of that burning smell giving me a headache!
So I was driving home late about a month and a half a go, and my headlights flickered and cut out completely. Murphy's Law indeed. I was 45 minutes from home on an empty highway. It seemed the only way I could get some light was to manually pull the headlight switch toward myself activating the high-beams. So that is what I did; you can imagine how fun it was driving once I got to the city, manually blinding everyone with my high beams and trying to shift gears without letting the switch go.
I pulled my dash apart and found that my headlight switch was burnt up and melted along the bottom (the hot, and headlight wire terminals); also the headlight and hot wire terminals in the headlight plug connecting to the multi-function switch was also melted on one side. This resulted in the destruction of my recently replaced multi-funtin switch. So temporarily, I cut the multi-function headlight plug and put a male terminal on the low-beam wire and a female on the hot wire for light, went to the junkyard for good plugs and terminals, and ordered a switch. I figured I had a bad connection on one of the terminals or something.
A few days later I spliced in a good used headlight switch plug and multi-function plug along with the terminal ends that were fried. It did fine but I smelled burning plastic, so a few days later I pulled pulled the plugs back out and the headlight switch plug was melted again. So i figured I left the corrosion one the Switch terminal itself. I then filed the terminals with terminal files until they were clean. I spliced in a second set of good terminals to be safe AND put dielectric grease in the hot holes.
I left it all loose in case it happened a THIRD time and for about a week, it was fine. I sniffed the vent right on top of the switch every time I used it or even got out the car. So it was fine for about a week and a half; I put it back together.
I was driving home tonight after doing some CHRISTMAS (screw Xmas) shopping and I definitely smelled that plug burning up. I sniffed the vent and it is definitely getting too hot.
Is there anything that anyone can add? I am not sure where to go from here. I made sure the connections were solid and clean and coated everything with dielectric grease. I hate pulling the dash and stuff apart over and over because of its age, so I'm stumped.
I'm sick of that burning smell giving me a headache!
