dip beams both gone, but everything elsewors

[james.ed]

Just got the baby strapped in and ready to go home and bang.. engine starts no problems, cabin lights on, wipers working, dip beam on.. dip beam off.. no more dip beam on either side. everything else still works and the fuses are in and alright. any takers - i'm guessing a power surge took the filaments out but why not anything else and what would cuase this? are there any other inline fuses just for the dip beam.

and its even raining!

[james.ed]

update - one light has no high or low beam, other light just high beam. didn't spot that in the panic! asuming one blew and took out the other light. at least i now have something to do tomorrow!

[beero]

There are no fuses for the headlights. First check the bulbs, then the bullet connectors behind the grille. They tend to corrode. Check the blue/white for high beam, blue/red for dipped beam, and especially the black wires for the earths.

[RTanguy]

This happened to me a while ago and it was just the bulb gone

[bmcecosse]

Connector pulled off at the dip switch - or further down the line, and main beam filament blown - is one possibility. But also you may have had one lamp failed for some time and not noticed - and then the other one fails. It's 'never' a power surge........ Would be a good time to upgrade the lights to halogen units I think!

[simmitc]

When you have the lamps out, use a voltmeter to check that you have 12 volts to both high and dip harness terminals, and that the earth is good. You could also check resistance across the terminals in the lamp - infinite means blown filament, zero = good lamp.

[james.ed]

thanks everyone.. lots of bulb swapping has occured with the result that only the nearside low beam is out (If only my spare bulb hadn't also been blown it would have taken alot less time than it did to work it all out!). Def time to get a volt meter and halogens. Is the halogen upgrade just a straight swap for the sealed beams?

[bmcecosse]

Pretty much YES.

[mike.perry]

Use a battery charger to test your bulbs, remove bulb, test it, replace it or chuck it out

[simmitc]

Nearside not working, if bulb is OK, then it's the cable from the offside to the nearside, runs beneath the radiator. Offside, the wire comes out of the harness to a double connector from where one wire goes to the offside lamp and one goes under rad. Nearside is a single bullet connector. Both single and double bullets can suffer from corrosion Wire is blue with red tracer.

[james.ed]

Thanks everyone.. I think all the powers working, so two new halogen headlamps have been ordered. Considering how much we drive at night they'll be a blessing!

[bmcecosse]

Actually - I was pleasantly surprised how good my sealed beam lights are when i had to use my Trav very early one morning a couple of months ago. Perfectly satisfactory for the performance of the car.