[Ken H]

I noticed that my headlights are very dim .You can see the (T3) Bulbs are on but no hope in driving at night . Can someone offer up some advice ..the bulbs are original. Alternator has been rebuilt , belts are tight . Could this be a voltage regulator issue ? Car runs fine.. radio works, all marker lights and parking lights are working fine .
Stumped ??

 

[Custom Jim]

Do you have a meter to check voltage ?.

You might not be getting a lot of power to the lights and/or they may not be getting a good ground.

Measure the voltage across the terminals on the back of the headlight and see how that compares to the voltage across the battery terminals.

If you have low voltage getting to the headlights it could any of the many connections between the back of the headlight plug and the battery. After time these connections corrode and the voltage to the headlights gets less and less. How much less comparing this to brightness is anyones guess and some have gone through all of the headlights circuits connections to reduce the voltage drop while others have added relay systems to correct the problems.

It's possible too that even though the headlights are getting proper voltage and ground, they are just dimmer than the newer style headlight bulbs that a lot of us have gotten used to.

Jim

 

[Ken H]

Thanks Jim,

 

[Custom Jim]

No problem.

I don't want to put my neck out but I've done this before is to carefully take a 12 gauge wire and run it from the battery positive post to the low and hight beam connector on a headlight and with the headlights on, on the different settings, see how much of a differnece there is between the factory wiring and bypassing a lot of it. If I were to see a big increase then I would attack the power side of the headlights. If no difference I would then try a test with the wire going from the negative post of the battery to the headlight ground terminal.

Jim

 

[MightyJoe]

ill tell ya its most likely your ground, especialy if youve added any type of aftermarket radio or gauges or anything simple, make sure your battery ground is good, if so run a secondary ground,you can run it to the same location, thats why most headlights go dim, your ground has either gone loose or you need a new or secondary ground, just my 2 cents hope it helps