In Need of Electrical Help

[Jim-ME]

I recently installed a new radiator support and my headlghts have not been right since. At first I had to shake the connector that had the blue and red wire to get lights. I cut out the bullet connector and installed crimp male and female connectors making a Y so I could connect both headlights. On my way home tonight I found out that I didn't have high beams so I cut out the blue and white bullet connector which had 2 blue and white wires on one end and the 2 headlight wires on the other end. I simply tied all 4 wires together and turned on the lights. Still no high beams and on low the passender's side headlight wiring started to get very hot and smoke. I turned off the lights at that point. Now I have no lights at all and noticed that two of the connectors at the dimmer switch had heated up enough to melt the rubber covers. I have replaced the burned connectors and put them back on the dimmer switch. Still nothing. I have tried to use a test light to see what is going on and the blue and red wire has no power and both of the blue and white wires have no power with the switch on. If I hook the test light to the positive terminal of the battery the test light works on 1 of the B&W but not the other B&W nor the B&R wires. Any help to fix this will be greatly appreciated.

[sven]

When I bought my series III, none of the lights worked. I ran a new ground directly from the battery to the grounding clip that's behind the grill. Give that a try.

[Mark Filtranti]

Jim,
You need a multimeter. Pick a digital one up at Radio Shack (cheap). You dont need to spend alot. On a Series you only need the following features : DC volts, continuity, and ohms helps too. One great feature is a tone for continuity. Its easier when you are twisted around. It helps greatly with the "Prince of Darkness". Without it you are totally doomed to the Prince.
When a wire is crossed it starts to glow inside, or as you know get hot and melt. What you have done is connect a ground wire directly to a hot wire. It would be like putting a wire between poss and neg terminals on the batt.
The previous owners many times have screwed the wires all up. You cant count on color codes until you confirm the correct wires are in the right place. Its simple, not allways fun. Disconnect the headlight feed wires(colored wires). Dont let them touch the frame or any other metal. Connect the black probe (meter) to a good ground. Turn on low beams, then touch the red probe to one wire at a time. 12volts will show for the low beams only. Label with tape. Repeat with high beams. We all have had to undo someone elses lighting messes one time or another. The Green bible will help too (haynes).

[Mark Filtranti]

Jim,
After rereading your post I see what you did. You connected the high and low beam pos feed together. Our stock rover wires have a hard enough time with current draw on just low or high. Both drawing at the same time, other than flash mode, will make a heating element or boil a tea kettle, then light on fire. Use the meter and separate the low and high. The headlight has three wires: 1-ground, 1-high, 1-low.

[Jim-ME]

Mark,
Thanks ever so much. I did buy a mulitmeter yersterday and will follow your recommendations to a T. I also found out that my dimmer switch was bad so I can't do much untl the UPS truck arrives today.

[TeriAnn]

Mark,
Thanks ever so much. I did buy a mulitmeter yersterday and will follow your recommendations to a T. I also found out that my dimmer switch was bad so I can't do much until the UPS truck arrives today.

For future reference a generic foot dimmer switch works just fine. Usually the only real difference is the spacing on the 2 mounting screws. Use an existing one and drill another is all it takes to convert to an inexpensive off the shelf generic.

Hopefully you haven't killed the headlamp switch by tying all the headlamp filaments together. It is easy to kill the combination headlamp/ignition switch by forcing it to flow too much current. :(

[Jim-ME]

I don't think so because the running lights still work fine. I'll test it with a test lamp before I go to much further.
Jim