Here's a bit of a long story.
Two weeks ago, I drove the 67 Newport Custom to a car show over in Lakeland, about 50 miles away. People were driving like idiots as usual, so I flicked on my headlights and put on the hi-beams so they could see me coming. I got to Lakeland and parked the car, and evidently forgot to turn off the headlights. When I left, I got to the car and the headlights weren't on. The car started right up, and off I went. Then, I noticed the headlight switch was on, so I turned it off and drove home.
A couple of days later, I realized that the headlights weren't working. The taillights and the dash lights were working just fine, but no headlights. I traced the power from the headlight switch to the dimmer switch, and found that yes, the headlight switch was indeed supplying power to the foot switch. Still no headlights. I cut the wires going into the dimmer switch to isolate the wires from the switch and the plug connector. Again, I found that the headlight switch was indeed sending 12V via the green wire to the foot switch. BUT, when I would use the green wire to energize either the red or black footswitch wires (hi or low beams), the power disappeared. This led to the conclusion that the internal circuit breaker as tripping for some reason.
NEXT, I applied direct battery power to the black and red wires respectively, and both the hi and low beams came on in turn, just fine...no smoke, no fire. SO, somehow, the headlight switch just does not like working the headlights anymore, since I left the brights on for a couple of hours in Lakeland.
Rather than pull the headlight switch again, and have it re-built again, here's how I solved the problem: I ran 12V from the battery to a new toggle switch under the dash. The switch sends 12V to the footswitch, instead of the headlight switch sending 12V to the footswitch. Now, I hit the headlight switch and the taillights and dash lights come on, and I hit the new toggle switch and the headlights come on, still controlled by the foot switch. No smoke, no fire, no problem.
I'll be interested to hear what I've done wrong.
Two weeks ago, I drove the 67 Newport Custom to a car show over in Lakeland, about 50 miles away. People were driving like idiots as usual, so I flicked on my headlights and put on the hi-beams so they could see me coming. I got to Lakeland and parked the car, and evidently forgot to turn off the headlights. When I left, I got to the car and the headlights weren't on. The car started right up, and off I went. Then, I noticed the headlight switch was on, so I turned it off and drove home.
A couple of days later, I realized that the headlights weren't working. The taillights and the dash lights were working just fine, but no headlights. I traced the power from the headlight switch to the dimmer switch, and found that yes, the headlight switch was indeed supplying power to the foot switch. Still no headlights. I cut the wires going into the dimmer switch to isolate the wires from the switch and the plug connector. Again, I found that the headlight switch was indeed sending 12V via the green wire to the foot switch. BUT, when I would use the green wire to energize either the red or black footswitch wires (hi or low beams), the power disappeared. This led to the conclusion that the internal circuit breaker as tripping for some reason.
NEXT, I applied direct battery power to the black and red wires respectively, and both the hi and low beams came on in turn, just fine...no smoke, no fire. SO, somehow, the headlight switch just does not like working the headlights anymore, since I left the brights on for a couple of hours in Lakeland.
Rather than pull the headlight switch again, and have it re-built again, here's how I solved the problem: I ran 12V from the battery to a new toggle switch under the dash. The switch sends 12V to the footswitch, instead of the headlight switch sending 12V to the footswitch. Now, I hit the headlight switch and the taillights and dash lights come on, and I hit the new toggle switch and the headlights come on, still controlled by the foot switch. No smoke, no fire, no problem.
I'll be interested to hear what I've done wrong.