Question about my daily driver.

[jhellwig]

I have a 95 s-10 extended cab. When I am criving at night with the high beams on after about a half hour they start on flash on and off. And when I say off I don't mean that they go back to dims. They go off(well the realy go to the daytime running light mode but they just aswell be off). And sometimes it is for a second but mostly they just flash. I put it back on dims for a while then switch back to brights it takes a little bit and they start flaxhing again. This started in winter so I just though that having the heater on full blast was making something kick out but now it is doing it when I have the ac running. I can hear the relay under the dash clicking when this is going on. I need to get this fixed before the decide to go out and not come back on cause I am now going to be driving in the dark everyday.


I am woundering if it is my relay just getting weak and junky or if I have soem other problem that I need to find. Hopefully someone else has seen this problem.

 

[mudslinger99]

Well it wouldn't hurt to change the relay if it is making a noise and you think that would be causing the problem.. If that don't fix it then the only thing that I can think of is maybe a bad ground or short in the system..

 

[jhellwig]

I am planning to do that sometime soon. I just have to remove the peice of junk knee bolster. That is a poor design on gms part putting a bunch of relays and turn signal flashers behind a big chunk of metal. The sound is normal for a relay though. Just the flashing isn't.

 

[JEBSR]

Lights

Have Seen This At The Shop A Few Times. Everytime It Has Been The Light Switch. When They Have A Broken Segment They Heat Up And Expand Seperating The Broken Contact, Cool Back Down And Reconnect And Work Again. This Would Also Explain The Relay Kicking On And Off.

 

[jhellwig]

So you mean the swith that turns the lights on? Or the dimmer switch? I guess that makes sense scince the highbeam filament in the bulb is probaly higher wattage, thus more current and more heat.

 

[JEBSR]

light problems

the on/off switch was bad is all of my experiances with this problem.

 

[diesel4me]

Headlight switch...

Most headlight switches have a curcuit breaker built into them,instead of using a fuse..when it gets overloaded and heats up it trips momentarily and cuts power to the lights..and then rapidly cools off and the lights come back on again...

We sold a great many headlight switches for Crown Victoria police cruisers in my area--seems all the added lights and flashers were too much load for the switch to take for very long,and they failed rapidly...gets pretty scary driving down a dark road at 40mph and your lights shut off!--my brothers Ford ramp truck would do that after driving an hour or more with the lights on!--he ended up using a heavy duty toggle switch and a relay,to make SURE the lights stayed on!..

If you added any off road or driving lights to your headlight wiring,that might be why the switch's curcuit breaker is tripping--or it could just be a worn switch--since the lights stay on 24/7 on newer trucks,thats a good bet--a bad dimmer switch can do the same thing,but they dont seem to fail as often as a headlight switch does,especially since they moved it to the steering colum,and got it off the salty floor!....

 

[jhellwig]

Well I did notice that once I got home that the switch felt hot. I think I will go order one tomorrow.

Thanks for the suggestions.