So last weekend I took my 1985 X1/9 out on a little adventure camping, had a great weekend. Sunday afternoon it poured with rain, the car was still fine. Five miles onto the A1 the main beam just dies.

The lights still go up and down off of the switch. Side lights still work and the light on my instrument panel, even full beam but no main beam.

I guessed that it probably shorted so checked my earth, then my fuses, then my bulbs, even swopped my relay around still with no joy...

I took to trying to see if I had power on the wires but I didn't. Pulled the wires out of the switch (2 plugs 3 wires on each) and looked at my wiring diagram, gave up as I can’t read it .

Has any one else had this issue?

On the two plugs the larger one has two power leads and i presume one earth. the other plug (the smaller one) has two power and one earth, this one seems to power the motors.

I'm really in the dark with this one..

Cheers

Alex

by 'main beam' do you mean 'dipped beam?' If its both headlights and does effect your full beam then i'd wager it was the main headlight switch in your dash. They are a bitch of a thing. To test i'd find out what colour the dip beam wires are and hard wire them straight from the battery to the terminal at the switch to check for continuity.

The way i do it is to start at the headlight bulbs and work back with a length of wire direct from the positive terminal on the battery.

Yea I am having issues with my dipped beam. The full beam works fine as it should just the dipped beam.

The main beam circuit goes through relays in the fusebox but the dipped beam is directly switched through the steering column switch.

Over time and especially when the earthing of the lighting circuit degrades the switch starts to melt a bit and the contacts move and can get "burned". Once they've gone there isn't much you can do beyond replacing the column switchgear. The way to avoid it in the first place is retro-fit relays for the dipped circuit.

Do a search and you'll find this subject comes up regularly.

The unusual bit is that I was under the belief that the later models had relays for both the dipped and main beam anyway - I think it changed when the production switched from Fiat to Bertone but it seems I could be wrong.

You will need to trace the wiring in the fusebox to check but if you obviously have relays for the dipped circuit then the above explanation does not apply.

There is a "stupid" question though that needs consideration - have you checked that the dipped filments on the bulbs are intact?

Hi Alex,

I would probably either guess at the headlight switch or the fusebox (rain + multi layer pcb = bad)

when you say you swapped the relay around, which relay do you mean? In the original wiring the dipped beam is not relayed (hence melty headlight switches).

I would probably start by pulling the connectors off the back of the switch to check for burned connections

Since you are having problems with your dipped beam only (assuming you've not already added relays for the dipped beam), It would appear that voltage is getting to the fusebox from the switch (as you still have full beam) but not from the fuse box to the lights. So I would check this out next.

There is not alot you can do with a duff fusebox apart from replace it tho. Gimme a shout if you need one

Hope this helps
Sorry if i've waffled a bit

Cheers

So I've checked my fuse box and it appears that I have relays for both dipped and full beam.

I have tried my hardest to remove the dipped beam switch from the dash board but it wont budge. Any ideas how it comes off?

I've checked the bulbs both are working fine when wired direct to the battery.

Am i right thinking that the steering column only controls full beam, it has no connection with dipped beam or sidelights?

I'm tearing my hair out. I have full beam but no sidelights or dipped beam. Fuses and bulbs are fine.

When the ignition is on should I have power to the fuse board regardless of switch position for the lights?

Cheers

Alex

The column switch has two circuits, ignoring the flash position it has two states. Either the dipped circuit is live (and driving the dipped beam relays) and the full beam circuit is isolated, or the reverse (full beam live and dipped circuit isolated).

If you have relays for dipped and full beam then you can check the switch is working with just a bulb and a couple of lengths of wire (or a multimeter if you have one). Just pull a relay out - there are two sets of contacts at perpendicular axis. One contact is permanently live (through the ignition switch as you've already observed), two are earthed (one is through the headlight bulb) and one is switched live through the column switch. You can see them as pairs (vertical and horizontal).

Hi Alex,

I agree with Jimbro. I had the same issue with my 1979 X. We found that the contacts in the column switch had melted as Jimbro described earlier. I had to the replace the complete column switch assembly, fortunately I found a NOS assembly as a replacement. Also as Jimbro described, my auto electrician also installed a relay so as to prevent this happening again. I was surprised how much brighter the headlights became.

Good luck with it all.

Wayne

Thanks for everyone’s help this issue is now resolved. It was the full beam that was causing the problems. Fixed and passed the MOT so I'm for now. One thing though, since fixing this I have lost intermittent wipe on my window wipers. Is this controlled through a relay or....?

Cheers.

Alex

Hi Alex,

The short answer is yes, the intermittent wipe is relay controlled.

What are the exact symptoms? Does it not wipe at all on the first switch position?

Which fuse box do you have? If it's the later style blade fuse panel the relay is situated top right of the fuse box casing.

I'll do a quick test in the morning to see what voltages go where when it's switched to int wipe

Could also be the wipe switch has just decided to give up at the same time you fixed the lights. I was cleaning my window switches the other day, the drivers one worked fine until I had finished cleaning the passenger one and then it decided to stop working, I guess it got jealous

Cheers
Neojames2k