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Original Message
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| Headlights are protected by a circuit breaker. |
| By Dave Shoe - 03/04/2001 12:43:45 PM; IP 216.243.158.40 |
I think the headlights are protected by a circuit breaker, possibly for safety reasons. Dunno exactly why a breaker is safe, as a lot can happen rounding a curve at night in McKelligan's Canyon when the suckers blink off for a few seconds. Seems like a fuse is less likely to just plain wear out.
O.K., the canyon thing happened on my Norton, and every brit biker worth his salt knows the Lucas headlight switch has only two positions: dim and flicker, so I was on the blinker in a heartbeat, and made it through just fine.
There is a "bimetal point-contact" circuit breaker inside your headlight switch. When the breaker points get dirty or corroded with age, they can start to self-heat and cause the switch to cycle on and off. They don't actually "flicker" from what I've seen - they turn off for a couple seconds and turn on for a couple and keep doing this. Maybe they do "flicker" in some failures, but I haven't yet seen one like that.
Are you running extra fog lights (these could overload the stock breaker)? Does it only happen when the bright lights are turned on (these draw extra current, if I recall correctly)? If you disconnect one headlight, does it still cycle? If it happens only on low beam, does it also happen on high beam (indicating a partially shorted low-beam filament)?
It's possible that your circuit breaker inside the headlight switch is acting properly and is cycling because a bulb filament has become defective (broken and resnagged a filament loop at a lower resistance - making the bulb brighter than normal). Also, the circuit breaker can improperly actuate if the connector plugging into the switch becomes damaged - this is easy to see because the offending connector blade will look burned on the outside of the switch..
Headlight switches are pretty much "dime-a-dozen" so if you can isolate the problem to the breaker inside the switch, it's an easy fix (once you learn how to remove the knob) and the switch is readily available. Note that the odd looking coil spring on the outside of the switch is actually the dimmer resistor for your dashboard lamps. Hey, I wondered what it was for a while.
Shoe. |
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This thread, so far...
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