Guest runnerkid101 Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 I drive an 89 reatta. What causes the headlights to not close? I notice the little orange light in the headlight switch is on, as well as the lamp retract. They stay on even when I turn the car off. Should I be worried? Just dont want it to drain my battery. My headlights both work by the way. What's going on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-a-n-i-e-l Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 Are you using HID or LED lights? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest runnerkid101 Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 I should've mentioned that have hid lights. With hid harness and all. Not just the ballasts themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAVES89 Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 I bought the "Truck Lite" LED lights and while the lights would turn off they would not close down for up to 10 minutes [or at times even longer]. I fixed that by installing a relay kit. Now the lights turn off and close as they should. This might correct your problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest runnerkid101 Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 (edited) I have an hid relay harness. Why is the lamp retract light illuminated even when the car is off, though? Edited June 14, 2015 by runnerkid101 (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronnie Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 I drive an 89 reatta. What causes the headlights to not close? I notice the little orange light in the headlight switch is on, as well as the lamp retract. They stay on even when I turn the car off. Should I be worried? Just dont want it to drain my battery. My headlights both work by the way. What's going on?You should be worried. That is not normal. The logical guess is you screwed something up when you installed the harness. What happens when you press the lamp retract button to close the doors? Indicator lights flash? Anything? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest runnerkid101 Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 It was installed at a shop. Of course, its possible that they could mess up as well. When I press the lamp retract button, I can't turn off the headlights. So either way the lamp retract light stays on. Weird, isn't it? Maybe a short or something? I wouldn't know too much of this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-a-n-i-e-l Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 I wrote a post not too long ago on how to fix this and reduce the current flowing through the push button switch. BTW my switch is not physically cooler when on.May as well go find it for you. Link and post are below. http://forums.aaca.org/topic/246242-headlight-wiring-help-needed/ Posted 30 October 2014 - 12:07 AMSo after my last post I went out to the garage and installed an additional relay in the interior relay panel.Short of it because I should be sleeping by now.Used the yellow 10 wire to energize the relay coil; grounded opposite side or coil. Removed the small orange/dk blu wire (from the headlight 20 circuit breaker) replace with a thicker gauge wire; spliced that wire to unused fuse spot (13 I think); connected the orange/dk blu wire to second side of the unused fuse (used a 5 amp fuse to run this part of the circuit)The new thicker wire was than ran to the common input on the new relay. Wired the normally open side of the relay (with the same gauge as the new thicker wire) to where the original yellow 10 wire used to be. (the headlights are now ran directly off the 20 amp circuit breaker and the head light switch see minimal current) I may see how small of a fuse I can get to work in the switch side but that will have to wait.The head lamps do remain on for about five seconds after the switch is turned off. I have not dug into why this is, but it does not bother me in the least as the headlight doors close immediately when the switch is pressed. The doors work even with both lights unplugged. I have a couple fuse/relay blocks I had been using for experimenting so the wires I installed all snapped into the factory blocks with no issues. So excluding a trip to your local yard to snag the wires this can be done in around two hours.Daniel 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest runnerkid101 Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 After all this, you were able to run hid lights with no problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest runnerkid101 Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 I got a headlight resistor as well. They said i didn't need it, but handed it to me anyway. Would that be causing an issue? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-a-n-i-e-l Posted June 16, 2015 Share Posted June 16, 2015 After all this, you were able to run hid lights with no problem?I run LEDs but HIDs would also work. I don't even have to have a bulb in for my light doors to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest runnerkid101 Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Oh alright. I hope this resolves my issue. I guess I would have to take a whole afternoon to do so. Any special tools required? This is coming from someone with not as much experience as you. Haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-a-n-i-e-l Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 picks or very small flatheads Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest runnerkid101 Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Thanks Daniel. I think I understand the procedure fully, I want to try this on Friday on my day off. You dont have any pictures of how you actually did it? I dont want to end up splicing the wrong things or doing something wrong without knowing. They would help out a lot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-a-n-i-e-l Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 All the pictures I had went to the pos that stole my last phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest runnerkid101 Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 Lets go find that douche. Speaking of, someone stole my center cap. Who does that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dan Gibbs Posted June 20, 2015 Share Posted June 20, 2015 "I notice the little orange light in the headlight switch is on, as well as the lamp retract. They stay on even when I turn the car off." I may be asking what will seem to be an insulting question, it's not meant to be at all, but simple fixes rule most of the time. I noticed a lack of one step in your description. I ask this as a maintenance/repair technician in the electronics field and imply no judgement at all. Being that this is a 23 to 25 yr-old car and still old-school, unlike cars from the early 90's forward.... Did you press the "LIGHTS OFF" button on the headlight-switch pod? I ask this because you specifically mentioned the orange LED was lit. When you turn off the ignition key and even remove it, that LED will still be lit because the LIGHTS or PARK buttons are still engaged. Same for the Fog Lights. Younger folks won't know of the old days when you had to pull a "headlights" knob out all the way to turn on the headlights or pull it out only part-way to only turn on the parking lights. Our '88-'89 Reattae are the bridge between old-school mechanical-switching and the "ease" of push-button controls - it could be deceptive to the younger folk who are used to soft-touch push-button stuff that just resets when something is turned off. Again, no insults are intended. If that was not the problem, and you have hit the Lights Off button, that means that the contacts inside the headlight switchpod have welded together and the switch needs to be removed, the contacts disengaged and repaired (if possible), and a relay installed that can handle the higher current of different-higher-current-spec headlights. I remember a reading a thread on this subject last year. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest runnerkid101 Posted June 20, 2015 Share Posted June 20, 2015 My mustang has a light switch that you pull for turn on the lights. I get what you mean I turn off the car, or ignition to off, however you may understand it and the light retract light stays lit. If I press it to try and turn it off, if dims a bit, but by doing so the "headlight on" light illuminates. So either way, something stays on. I removed the HID lights, ballasts and relay this afternoon and put the silvania headlights back in and my issue was no longer. My fog light HID are still plugged in, but it doesn't seem to be an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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