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headlight switch plug issues

TheManch

NAXJA Forum User
Location
mckinleyville ca
the headlights didn't quite work right on my 96 xj, i only had the flash to pass feature. i figured it was the headlight switch in the dash after reading what some people had told me. well earlier tonight i pulled the entire outer dash and pulled my headlight switch too. as soon as i plugged in the new one everything worked as it should. great i'm home free....well not quite, one of the connections in the middle of the whole plug got hot at some point, hot enough to melt the surrounding plastic and some of the casing off of the wire that goes into the back of the plug, explains why the headlights didn't work and also explains why the plug was so hard to remove. my question is this, obviously i need to get a new plug, but i was thinking that this might be caused by a short in the wire somewhere, and who know's where that harness goes too, i cant trace it back into the dash yet. however i would think that a short of that capacity which could heat the wire enough would blow a fuse? so that leads me to believe that the problem is in my wiring plug right? i'm no electrical genius but i'm just going on basic knowledge. and it's 2 o clock in the morning, this makes sense to me now but i'll have to re read it tomorrow.


thanks for your help


mike
 
Poor contact in the headlight switch causes the heat buildup, which often results in a melted plug. If everything seems to be working and you're just worried about exposed wires, you can paint the bared wired with some liquid electrical tape or silicon.
 
i couldn't find one of the harnesses localy so what ended up doing was putting spade type connectors on their respective locations on the new headlight switch. i will check all connections that i can find and make sure they all look good. it hit me that the previous owners, instead of fixing the problem, simply drove around constantly pulling back on the flash to pass feature, which looks like it illuminates both the high and low beams at the same time, which i figured defenitely could have cause the overload and melted the wire. We'll see what happens now..........



Mike
 
I’m having the same problem with my plug. I tried to remove some of the wires from the melted plug, but broke a few connectors in the process due to the excessive melting around the connectors. Does anyone have a diagram of which wire goes to which pin on the switch so that I can attempt to rewire it with out the plug? The only changes that I have made to my lighting system is an upgrade to IPF Fatboy bulbs and a set of IPF Multiapplication 55W Driving/Fog lights which are on the factory fog light switch/circuit. Could either of these be the cause for the melting of the plug? Thanks in advance.
 
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