Headlight mot failure

[Nick Gramaglia]

I have just had my HF mot'd, not too bad it needs new wipers and a track rod end, but the thing thats puzzling me is the headlight fault they both work fine but when I switch to main beam the two inner lights come on but the drivers side headlight goes off could this be a relay fault or more likely to be a problem with the stalk switch.

Nick

[Thotos]

Do the outer headlamps not use twin filament bulbs for low and high beam? If so you just need a new bulb.

[thecolonel]

Sound like someone has been playing,
when I ran my Fulvia outer lamps were dip and main, inner lamps were "fog" lights

Geoff

[HF_Dave]

I think that's an earth problem , If you have a bad earth on the main beam the earth will be drawn through the dip beam and the bulb will go out. Check the earth first. David 

[Nick Gramaglia]

Thanks for the advice
I will check the earth and bulb tomorrow, I have 10 days to sort out the problem before the re test.

[lancialulu]

Nick

It is "normal" for the outers to act as both main and dip. The inners being driving lights on a seperate switch. On one of my cars however the inners have been wired through another relay to come on as well as the outer main beam and drop out when on dipped.

Maybe some one has messed with the wiring. However you have had an MOT before?

Anyway glad that this meas you have it all back together at the back.

Tim

[Nick Gramaglia]

Hi Tim

Yes the axle is back on the car with different springs, new bushes, brake pipe and a working handbrake.

I bought the car a year ago with a new mot, all I can think is some testers are more strict than others

[Nick Gramaglia]

Thanks for the advice, the headlights and main beam are working as they should now, someone had indeed wired the inner "fog" lights directly to them which strained and broke the terminal in one of the connection blocks, just need to order a left hand thread track rod end from Omicron tomorrow and back for the re test.

Cheers
Nick

[lancialulu]

Excellent - well done, its nice when it gets sorted like that.

Tim

[thecolonel]

Glad you're sorted, I believe they were called "fog" lights because they were below the
minimum height for headlamps, although they are in fact auxilliary driving lamps.

Geoff

[Neil]

An interesting discussion were UK headlights different from Italian/European S2 cars? Mine is an Italian S2 car with all four headlamps being H1 units, the outers were sidelights and dip beams and the inners were main beam units, the outers stay on when you put mains on - all four on at once, no additional switches to activate the inners mains.

Were UK cars fitted with H4 headlights to meet the UK regulations with the raised lights, Geoff seems your outers were H4?

[thecolonel]

The UK lighting regulations changed in 1971 as such there was a minimum height, I believe
this led to the eyebrows on the Fulvia, my '71 ser II did have H4 outer & H1 inner with a
switch in the centre console marked FOG.
If you have main/dip on the outer lamps they can switch between the two
If you have dip outer and main inner then the inner mains come on with the outer dip.

Geoff

[dhla40]

While we are on this subject has anyone had a problem with getting an MOT on a LHD S2 or a RHD modified to a low light front end?  I have a 73 project car which I have changed to a S1 front end and dont really want a fuss about headlight height if I ever get round to MOT it.

Sean

[bruciebonuz]

My HF is a Series 2 UK RHD car with the flat front (as is Alan Turner's - spyder on Lancisti.com) - I had my car MOTd recently - no problems at all (the lights needed adjusting but that was it)

[Thotos]

Just pump up the front tyres to the max for the MOT test