Bad ground?

[bsunds 10]

So on my 69 it has recently been shutting off the headlights for about 10 to 50 seconds on an off every 10 15mins or so, but just today it a new problem arose when the car is on the dash lighs and headlights flicker along with every light on my car frequently, they will all be good for about 30 sec then its,a flicker party for a min or so, back and forth. Could this be a bad ground? Or something else like voltage regulator? The car always starts up perfectly but another thing my positive clam that attaches to my battery has also seen alot of corrosion as well. Any advice to narrow down my problem would be awesome

[Grabber70Mach 107]

headlight switch

[Mike65 476]

headlight switch

 

+1 sounds to me like a bad headlight switch also. The switch has an internal circut breaker & when it has gone bad it is overheating & tripping the internal circut breaker & the lights go out, when it cools off the lights come back on.

[LiLMike 42]

I had the same problem in my 70 Mach 1 back in the late 70s. It turned out to be the headlight dimmer switch. All kinds of dirt and debris had gotten into the connector and was causing the problem. I cleaned it out, repaired the wiring and it was good as new.

[bsunds 10]

Where do you find the headlight dimmer switch?

[rmarks 20]

It's part of the headlight switch...need to swap out the headlight switch.

[LiLMike 42]

No, I mean the dimmer switch on the floor. The round silver push button that you operate to dim & turn your brights on with your foot.

[danno 128]

It could be the headlight switch, because as mentioned, it has a circuit breaker inside it that shuts off the lights if it has too much current. It can be getting too much current from a short in your wires or too heavy a load. Do you have halogen or some bulbs that are high wattage?

 

The dimmer switch that was mentioned could be the problem also if there is an intermittant short in it to ground. It shorts to ground, trips the circuit breaker in the switch, and the headlights go off. When the circuit breaker cools down, it reconnects and the lights come back on until the next time the intermittant short occurs.

 

The easiest way to fix it is probably to just try replacing the headlight switch and see if that fixes the problem. If that does not, you have an intermittant short between the lights wire and ground.

[Lemon Owner 11]

I had the same problem so I replaced the headlight switch and the problem went away.

 

Oh and my headlights are much brighter too, so worth it for that reason alone.

[bsunds 10]

ya it turns out it was the headlight switch, i cleaned it and i found a lose ground in the trunk. (and i bought a new switch to change it out just for the heck of it) :sweatdrop: problem is all fixed thanks for the advice! only things bugging me now is the stupid head lamp on the driver side is weak haha probably a bad ground causing that as well. one last question not that it really bothers me but when i turn on my headlights it only works when all are on i cant turn off the highs without turning them all off, not that i mind that much i prefer all on looks great but im just curious as to what might be causing this.

[danno 128]

If all 4 lights are on all the time, it sounds like your dimmer switch is bad. It is supposed to turn off the low beams and turn on the high. You can verify this by unplugging it and using a paper clip to make connections in the connector. Connecting the red/green wire to the red/blk should turn on the low beams, and connecting the red/green to the green/black should turn on the high beams.