Headlights 83 1/2 Westy

[Piper]

I also posted this in electrical, but driving home around twilight the other night, I had my headlights on, I noticed that my high beams light was on, on the dash, and thus, flicked the switch to turn them off, thinking I'd bumped the switch by accident, but the light stayed on. I got out and noticed I had no headlights at all, high or low beam, made her home, and have checked things over to the best of my ability, it seems there IS power to the lights, all teh fuses are good, but nothing happening. Wondering if those crazy engineers did something weird like wire the bulbs in series, or something (the old, one burns out, they both go out)? Anyone have any ideas? I'll go tomorrow and buy a couple new bulbs, but am wondering if anyone has any input?

[fusername]

I would blame the relay that swaps the lights. I bet its just a normal relay, swap it with a good one on your fuse panel and see if that fixes it?

sounds like a ground issue too, but both lights use seperate grounds, correct? so i would blame the relay first.

[ajdenette]

My bet is on the grounding lug above the fuse panel not making a good ground for the head lights as well as other lights probably. you should clean all the grounds there and look at a good relay upgrade and possibly even adding a local ground for each headlight that will give you a noticeable difference you should also check the switch in the stock and the head light switch as they are the other areas of failure of the stock system.

[fusername]

oh right, vanagone headlight switches are short lived, aint they. really smells like a ground issue from here tho.

[ajdenette]

Check the bulb over the speedometer to get to it pull the cluster cover off, look in from the windshield you will see the 2 hand holds and sit in the driver sear and pull up it will take a bit of force, there are LED kits out there to illuminate the speedometer much better also.