95 Nissan Pickup headlights quit working!

[Saturn_Fan]

Just picked up a 95 Nissan hard body PU with the VG30E engine. Anyway, a few hours after I bought the truck, both headlights went out at the same time. The fuses all look good, now I am at a loss on how to approach fixing this one. Strange thing is the side marker lights by the headlights, and the turn signals all work.

Hoping to get this figured out so I can drive it at night.

 

[Quest]

simple! follow the usual logics ot testing electrical systems on your vehicle (battery ok? voltage ok? alternator ok?,etc.) and then go on from there.

Assuming the engine runs and can sustain itself (meaning that alternator is charging), then it would not be surprising that both lightbulbs go bad at the same time.

Mind you though: halogen bulbs or similar tend to blow sooner if it has grease markings(in the form of greasy mechanics hand) on it's glass.

Q.

 

[meep]

should be powered through a relay, possibly one for each side. Find the relay. Should be a 4 pin device, 1 power, 1 switched power, one ground and 1 out to the lamp(s). you can do most of your diagnostics there.

is ground present? (relay needs this to fn)
does it receive switched power? (tests switch)
does it have battery power? (gotta have it)

continuity test from the output side to ground to see if the downstream circuit is good (includes bulb, should be 6-7 ohms if I recall).

Note: lots of headlamps use breakers (metal case ike large fuse) instead of fuses.

M

 

[Saturn_Fan]

Thanks for the tips! I will be tackling this after work!

Best wishes,

Jon

 

[eljefino]

do the high beams work or does nothing work?

Do you have a flash-to-pass? Does that work?

I lost both lowbeams at the same time once. Was snowy so I may have vibrated them scraping them off. Still an amazing coincidence.

Autozone has some simple wiring diagrams under "repair info". Even if your truck isn't listed look at some other nissan product for wire colors and to find out if they like to switch hots or grounds.

A setup I like is to have seperate left and right fuses supply hots, so if one fuse blows it only takes one side. Then the grounds are switched through the in-cab switch.

 

[Jimmy9190]

You could also pick up a Haynes book or Nissan service manual and get a diagram of the headlight switch so you can verify its operation with a volt-ohm meter. Since all the other lights work OK I would check the headlight switch first. I had the same thing happen to me on 2 previous cars, both times while driving at night.

 

[Saturn_Fan]

I am seriously stupid when it comes to diagnosing anything electrical. One thing of note is that the weather at the time this took place was about 5 inches of thick slush.

There are no high beams either. In fact when you toggle the switch to high beams, the dash doesn't show the blue headlight symbol like before.

I pulled every single fuse in the cab of the truck and all of them looked good. The headlights are shown as being two 15A fuses and they look great.

One more thing...right before the lights quit working, I simply replaced the side marker lights with bulbs that worked as well as the reverse lights that were out too.

I will go out and try to figure things out. I can barely run a fluke meter. LOL

 

[Saturn_Fan]

Thank goodness this didn't happen at night. This truck is only used for hauling my boat and four wheeler, otherwise it will just sit in the driveway, so I can avoid all night driving, but you never know when I may need the truck at night.

Will try everyone' suggestions!

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[Saturn_Fan]

I fixed it! I traced all the wire coming off the headlamps and jiggled them until the lights came on. It was just a loose connection involving a one of those wire nut deals.

Good to go!

Thanks guys!

Jon

 

[eljefino]

wire nut? Doesn't sound stock.

 

[Saturn_Fan]

Indeed not stock. After some digging around, I discovered three or four various rat nests of homemade wiring. Looks like the guy didn't know what he is doing as the positive battery terminal has five different wires going to it, which can't be a good thing. Oh, and I forgot to mention the three toggle switches, for what purpose, i do not know.

There was some paperwork I found that had notes scribbled on it that mentioned subs, preouts, and an amp. Also, this person wired in a cheesy K-9 cheapo alarm.

Wondering if I should get this cleaned up by tearing out all this homemade wiring and toggle switches? He even has wires going into the fuse box that are mashed in under some of the 15A fuses!

 

[Jimmy9190]

Yes you should remove the rats' nests as soon as possible. Be careful of the wires shoved under the fuse terminals. A lot of times what happens is the little metal connectors on the fuse location that the blade of the fuse slides in to will get spread apart by the wire being shoved in there, then the blade of the fuse makes no contact or intermittent contact and that particular circuit loses power or exhibits other problems. If that happens there are tools available to repair the fuse connectors, or you can bend the blade of the fuse to get a better connection.

The improper wiring and unnecessary toggle switches and battery connections will do nothing but cause problems down the road. I would suggest taking it all out and repairing the existing factory wiring with solder and heat shrink or electrical tape or butt connectors as soon as possible to avoid any further electrical trouble. Wire nuts have no proper place in a car or truck.

 

[Saturn_Fan]

Thanks for the tip Jimmy. I think I will find a little garage that can handle cleaning this mess up and doing as you suggest. All this wiring intermittently making contact or shorting can be dangerous I assume.

I forgot to mention that I took off the plastic cover over the steering wheel area and found four wires soldered to the ignition tumbler area. Sheesh! What a mess.

Do you think this is something that is just a couple of hundred dollar deal to clean this up?

Thanks again,

jon

 

[Jimmy9190]

I don't know what labor rates are in Wisconsin, but I would hope it would not cost any more than $200. You might try to find a reputable independent car audio shop and have them take a look at it. An experienced installer would probably be able to clean it up for you in an hour or two at most, just judging by what you described. I know the car audio shop where I used to work would probably charge no more than $100 to remove the alarm and the other wiring, switches, etc. from the truck and put all the factory wiring back together properly, but I am in Florida and the shop where I worked charged a flat labor rate, not by the hour. A good installer may even be able to replace your headlight switch if need be.

The 4 wires soldered to the ignition switch sounds like the factory ignition connections. Some Japanese vehicles have the wires for the switch are soldered to their resepective contacts, and the wires extend down a few inches and end in a plastic connector which mates to a connector in the car wiring harness. If the previous owner hacked into the ignition harness, it really should be repaired as soon as possible.

Good luck with it, and let us know what happens.

Jimmy

 

[Jett Rink]

Just out of curiosity, is there any kind of annual vehicular inspection in the state of Wisconsin? There sure isn't in Tennessee. You wouldn't believe the safety violations rolling over the roads: no muffler, muffler attached by coat hanger, muffler bouncing up and down, bald tires, substandard brakes, inoperative tail lights and headlights, no pollution or emission testing. This list could go on forever, but I'm sure there's plenty of this kind of 6th grade electrical engineering going on, too, under the hood.

Instead of just periodically jacking up the sales tax, I wish the state legislature would do something to reign in these rolling hazards to the motoring public. Let's start at $20 per year for inspection of basic systems on the vehicle. For all I know the law already accounts for these kinds of things, but they are most definitely not enforced.

Anyway, if Wisconsin has such a vehicular inspection program, is this sort of thing supposed to be examined under the inspection. If so, I'd found out who performed it, notify them and the proper autorities.

 

[Jimmy9190]

I agree 110% with Jett. States should have a strict inspection law in place. It's the same here in Florida with cars that really are in such bad condition they should never be allowed on the road, but we don't have any inspection laws at all.

I spent over 15 years in the car audio and security installation business, and I saw vehicles all the time that were in horrible condition. No brake lights or tail lights, no turn signals, no headlights, seatbelts not working right, seats not even bolted down to begin with, car not even halfway running right and fogging up the shop with exhaust fumes. Fuel leaks, oil leaks, coolant leaks, batteries held down with string or not held down at all, battery post clamps held in place with vise grips, you name it I saw it. I have seen more than my share of the rats' nest type wiring nightmares like Jon has on his hands now, even worse. I have found all manner of let's just call it non-automotive material in cars and I remember one time a pickup truck came in the shop that had grass growing under the seat, about 2 inches high. I have had to refuse service to more than one customer due to ants, roaches, bugs and all kinds of trash infesting the car. The saying in the shop back then was "the interior of that car very closely resembles the interior of a dumpster". I will never forget the worst one I ever had was in the middle of the hottest part of summer a guy came in to get new rear speakers installed in his car, it was an Oldsmobile or Buick, a family sedan you had to get in the trunk of the car to install the speakers. I opened the trunk on that hot summer day and found 3 or 4 garbage bags filled with dirty baby diapers. The smell would have gagged a billy goat. It sure was odd though that these folks with cars that were in such sad shape were sure enough getting a new radio, and in a lot of cases new speakers, amps and other audio as well.

I think about that some times even now, how people can mistreat and neglect a car so badly, yet it keeps on running. I'd gladly pay more on my tag registration each year to help fund state inspections of vehicles if it would keep the death traps and rust buckets and mechanical nightmares off the roads.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: Jett Rink
6th grade electrical engineering going on, too, under the hood.


When I was in 6th grade I knew enough to solder wires to splice them instead of using a wirenut.

 

[wapacz]

Originally Posted By: brianl703
Originally Posted By: Jett Rink
6th grade electrical engineering going on, too, under the hood.


When I was in 6th grade I knew enough to solder wires to splice them instead of using a wirenut.


No see the wirenuts where just there for testing purposes
You know you have to make sure it all works before your break out the soldering iron.

Though it reminds me of my friend that was to cheap to buy wire harness to install a new radio. So we ended up sitting in his car trying to solder these wires that hardly stuck out of the cubby while trying not to drip solder or burn each other. Anyways we ended up getting it all soldered, taped and working. Just to have the car ended up being totaled 6 months later by my friends dad. The funny thing is when I saw pictures of the car the radio had came out and was hanging by the wires. So apparently we did a good job of soldering it.