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headlight issues

nofro

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Centreville, MD
I was driving my 94 cherokee the other night, and the headlights started flashing on and off. It was just the headlights, Hi and lo beam, parking and dash lights worked fine. It seemed like they would overheat or something, as it took a few minutes for it to happen, and if I left them off for a little while, they would work a few minutes before flashing again. I searched on here and thought it was the headlight switch, so I got a new one from napa and went to hook it up today.

Once I got it plugged in I went to put it back into place and heard a sizzle and saw some smoke, so I took it back out. I couldnt see where any of it came from, but went ahead and put the switch back in anyway (making sure to hook up the extra little ground wire).

Now, no headlights at all, no parking lights, no dash lights, and the only thing the switch does is turn the dome light on...

Any ideas what the problem actually is?
 
Sounds like you popped the fuse.

Can't say exactly why it popped but if your lights were flickering before, you likelyhave a break in a wire somewhere that possibly shorted out when you were fiddling with the harness.
 
Take a good look at the plastic connecter for the headlamp switch. My guess is you got some resistance in the connection, which got hot and melted the plastic. While installing the new switch, the plastic may have melted enough to let the terminals touch each other, smoke & sizzle! The headlamps don't have a fuse, but a circuit breaker that is built into the headlamp switch, and the blinking is the CB resetting. Kind of a safety feature so the lights don't go out completely while driving. If the power wire to the switch got grounded, you may have either melted a fuseable link at the starter relay, or a fuse in the underhood box, not sure what a '94 has. And check the taillamp fuse. If that goes you will also lose the dash lights. Any chance you got a bad replacement switch?
 
Thanks for the replys.

Yea the harness was the first thing I checked, and it looks to be in good shape.

Ill check the other ideas tomorrow, and yea I guess the switch could be bad, so Ill see if I can hook it up to a multimeter as well.
 
well it looks like the underhood headlamp 40A fuse was blown. I looked at the connector on the switch, and the plastic was slightly melted, but it didnt look like it would be enough to cause a short. I did notice that you can still see some of the blades when it is plugged in, so maybe I just bumped a ground to one of those as I was pushing it into place last time. I guess Ill just put it in place and get a new fuse and see if that works.
 
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