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240 No low beams or dash lights. High beams work.

Marvelous3

Marvelous3

Who engineered this?
Joined
Nov 12, 2002
Location
Atlanta
So I was making adapters for my ecodes so I could convert from the 9004 oem bulb to the 9003 for the ecodes. I think I may have wired the adapters backwards and blown a fuse? When I turn the light switch I don?t have any dash lights and I don?t have low beams. If I pull the stalk on the high beams they come on. Is there a fuse for these I may have blown? I can hear the relay click when I turn the lights on and off so it should be fine. Ideas?
 
Something had to blow, as there's not any fuse in the circuit.

Check down low behind the brake pedal. You're lucky having a '90. That thing got moved behind the center vents in '91. There's a weak spot at the relay socket that usually doesn't need a short circuit to fail -- maybe you wired things right, but it just couldn't take the load of your new lights.

headlight71.jpg


headlight22.jpg
 
Art, you are STILL the man. Probably not a better electrical resource on the 2 series than you are. Kudos.
 
Thank you for the great response. Is there a ground for the lights somewhere? I noticed the passenger side ground is bolted to the passenger side fender.
 
Ah, '91 then. Yes, the ground is out by the fender.

Headlight relay isn't so easy to get to. Easier is the Bulb Failure Warning Sensor (BFWS) "relay" just above your lap. Visual inspection might reveal the problem, but a test light following the circuit is sure to. The easiest place to begin testing for voltage is at the step relay on the left inner fender. If you have power at the yellow wire (56) you know at least you won't be needing to dig behind the center vents. Check next at the green wire (56b) with the high beams off to check the step relay. If you have power there, then take down the knee bolster and drop the orange BFWS tomato can, checking for power at green, then blue, wires.

91wdm30.jpg


91wdm31.jpg


If you do have to tear into the dash, the headlight relay is the one clipped to the rail with a white socket shown below. Has a large yellow and a large green/red wire.

headlightRelay01.jpg
 
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Dug the thing out of the center console. The plug isn’t burned.

Power should come out of the red wire so if I hook a set light to it that should show me whether the relay is getting power?
 
cleanflametrap said:
Ah, '91 then. Yes, the ground is out by the fender.

Headlight relay isn't so easy to get to. Easier is the Bulb Failure Warning Sensor (BFWS) "relay" just above your lap. Visual inspection might reveal the problem, but a test light following the circuit is sure to. The easiest place to begin testing for voltage is at the step relay on the left inner fender. If you have power at the yellow wire (56) you know at least you won't be needing to dig behind the center vents. Check next at the green wire (56b) with the high beams off to check the step relay. If you have power there, then take down the knee bolster and drop the orange BFWS tomato can, checking for power at green, then blue, wires.

91wdm30.jpg


91wdm31.jpg


If you do have to tear into the dash, the headlight relay is the one clipped to the rail with a white socket shown below. Has a large yellow and a large green/red wire.

headlightRelay01.jpg
Click to expand...

Okay, thank you for being patient with me.

I turn the key to position 2 and turn the lights on with my test light I do t get any light off of the yellow wire or green(I think gr is grey?) wire.
 
Oops, yes, GR is gray, not green. Sorry that's an error I've repeated.

No juice at the yellow where it goes into the step relay under the hood is a good clue.

Back to the center vents. Trouble most likely is at that white relay socket. You should have power at the fat green/red wire all the time, and at the fat yellow wire when the key and the light switches are on. If nothing on the green/red, you can look at the other end of that behind the fuse panel - unfused side of it.

In all of the cases I've encountered this, the relay did not need to be replaced, only the one burned terminal in the socket. But yours might be different if you really did have a short circuit out there at the lamp socket.

The relay is different from most of the other similar-looking relays in your car, so be sure to match up the numbers if you swap it.
 
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So after a visit to pull a part for a bulb out relay and headlight relay, I discovered the 30amp fuse in the engine bay was blown. I had very quickly looked at it days ago and it looked okay and didn’t think much of it afterwards since all the diagrams didn’t show it as part of the circuits. New fuse and everything works again.

Thanks for the help guys!
 
Marvelous3 said:
So after a visit to pull a part for a bulb out relay and headlight relay, I discovered the 30amp fuse in the engine bay was blown. I had very quickly looked at it days ago and it looked okay and didn?t think much of it afterwards since all the diagrams didn?t show it as part of the circuits. New fuse and everything works again.

Thanks for the help guys!
Click to expand...

Ha! I would have never guessed that. Only in our modified cars!

:)
 
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