headlamp failure

Asked by two4two Nov 26, 2018 at 09:24 AM about the 1998 Ford Escort 2 Dr ZX2 Cool Coupe

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

I have problem where driver-side headlight fails both hi and low beam.  I'm not sure how to probe the connector with my multimeter.  Ground probe to the middle gives no voltage between either side on the connector with switch turned on and set to hi and low beams.  However, if I touch probes between left and right sides I get 11.5V, but only one way -- that is if I switch the probes I get 0V.  How do I test the connector?  I got a new one to install, but I'd rather test the original before cutting it out and putting in the new one

1 Answer

two4two answered 5 years ago

I tested it. I put + probe on the left connect point, and the - probe to the car body, set multimeter to DC V setting, turned on the light switch. Low beam = 12V, hi beam = 0V. Switched + probe to right connect point and got low beam = 0V, hi beam = 12V. Changed multimeter to olhms setting and put one probe on center connect point and the other probe on car body and got 0.0F -- no reading. I deduce bad ground. Cut ground wire and soldered a piece of wire to it and jumped to the car body. Golden. Old connector was apparently OK, but the ground was lost at some point, and so I simply constructed my own ground path.

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