62 Plymouth Headlight Bulbs

[Stumper]

Are the low beam lamps on a 62’ Plymouth two filaments? Trouble shooting a loss of low beam lights on my Fury and wondering if it’s the bulbs themselves.. I have no lights in low beam but all 4 light up in high beam.

 

[Pete Kaczmarski]

That is common problem, and it is with a corroded high beam floor switch. They are cheap, replace it and all will be fine.

 

[Stumper]

Already tried the dimmer switch. That wasn’t it.

 

[matthon]

Are the low beam lamps on a 62’ Plymouth two filaments?

Yes, 3 prongs on the back.
Sounds like your headlights are blown.
I put a ground hub next to my battery, pigtail to the battery negative, grounded all my lights to it. No more blown bulbs and lights are brighter than ever.

 

[Stumper]

Thanks Matthon. Do you have a picture of your grounding set up? With the headlight ground already right on the other side of the support I wonder if it might be good to put a strap from it to the battery?

 

[matthon]

Do you have a picture of your grounding set up? With the headlight ground already right on the other side of the support I wonder if it might be good to put a strap from it to the battery?

Ground hub at 8:35 and 15:47 in the video, grounded bright headlights at 17:20.

Imo, I would just ditch the grounds to the body, in my experience it just causes issues, whether you run another wire from the current ground, or 'clean up' the surface and have a better ground for a short time.
Also, a bunch of grounds directly to the battery is messy, confusing, can't r&r the battery or even disconnect without 50 wires complicating it, and they end up being poor grounds.
I have a ground hub by the battery, one under the dash, all lights front to rear tie to a common great ground, battery and engine block.

I chimed into a similar discussion on fabo, showed the pics of my headlights, and even after that others said the Wagner headlights I'm running are garbage. Garbage or not, moving the ground from the headlight surround to the ground hub made them a gagillion times brighter and safer.

I do this with all my cars.

Rant over, your results may vary, no warranties expressed or implied.

 

[Pete Kaczmarski]

Already tried the dimmer switch. That wasn’t it.

Double checking that you grounded the NEW dimmer switch?

 

[Stumper]

Double checking that you grounded the NEW dimmer switch?

Dimmer grounds to the floor doesn’t it?

 

[matthon]

Dimmer switch doesn't ground itself to anything.
Power from the headlight switch, one wire out for the low beams, one to the high.
Headlights are grounded on the body, at the headlight buckets, that's why the headlights suck.
At least that's how my car is set up, switch worked when there was no floor for it to screw to.

 

[Stumper]

I made sure the switch was hitting bare metal to make sure…. Figured it was worth a try since Nothing else has worked so far….
I’ve tried new dimmer, new HL switch and new bulb and still no low beam…. I’ve got high beam - which includes the low beam lights but not low by themselves…

 

[matthon]

Take a test light and check wiring for power from one end to the other.
Got power at the first low beam? And so on. Or start at the switch.
Check the headlight grounds?

I've replaced electrical components before and the new one was bad just like the old one, that'll drive you nuts.

 

[Stumper]

Grounds are all good, even made them better. I’ve checked all wiring, section by section for continuity and it all seems good. I guess I could try looking for power instead.

 

[Pete Kaczmarski]

Check and see if you have power leading to and leaving the new headlight switch. If not leaving and have the old switch, liberally spray with Electrical Contact spray inside the switch, work it a dozen times and give the old one a try.

 

[Stumper]

There's power to and from the switch because all of the headlights come on in high beam, the center high beam bulbs and the outer low beam bulbs (on the high beam filament) - they all come on.

 

[dadsbee]

There's power to and from the switch because all of the headlights come on in high beam, the

To and from when high is kicked in, but apparently zip on low setting... so no low beams.

 

[Stumper]

To and from when high is kicked in, but apparently zip on low setting... so no low beams.

Correct! If I understand the wiring correctly there is only one power wire from the switch to the dimmer, which then splits it in two? So if there is power getting to the dimmer its just not splitting and getting to the low beam?

 

[dadsbee]

Why guys are telling you the floor switch is bad...

 

[Stumper]

I’ve replaced the dimmer switch and it didn’t help.

 

[dadsbee]

I’ve replaced the dimmer switch and it didn’t help.

Have you ensured that it is actually good as well? If so.. follow the current direction. Does power come out the other side of it on LOW setting? Does it come out the bulkhead connection wiring and onward to the engine/headlight harness wiring? If the switch is good, I'd suspect a bulkhead connection gone bad/corroded.

 

[matthon]

New parts suck, especially electrical parts.
It's why I keep a half dozen old alternators around (this was after learning my lesson on a new one, then they replaced it, then they replaced it again, then they replaced it and the new battery again, then I dug out an old one, problem solved).

FWIW, on my 64, the right side headlights/directional went out, along with the left side dash bulbs.
Twisting the headlight switch back and forth a hundred times solved it, and made the dash lights brighter, just an old switch that needed a good 'cleaning.'