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MG MGB Technical - Low Beam Short

It appears I have a short in my high/low beam stock. When I turn on my headlamps the low beams will stay on for a while and then go out. All the other light are fine. If I flip the highs on, they will come on some times and then go out. If I pull the signal towards my slightly the lows will come on and then off if I release the signal lever. Do I need a new assembly or is this a “repairable” problem?

Thanks
Todd
Todds 69C

You are probably right.
My low beam went, only came back on once though.
After working out what contact did what (its quite complicated, expect to spend about half an hour puzzling it out)
I soldered in a by pass wire from the top of the switch to the bottom. This substituted for the broken connection inside the switch. You can't get inside the switch to see what brass connection cracked (and fix it). That was over a year ago, still working great.

A year or so before that, I had a loose bullet connector behind the dash. That was an easy fix. You might be lucky and it could be that.
Peter

Fit relays as the switch is of very poor design and at least you wont be putting high current though it, so if it does fail again you will lesson the chance of melting the switch and possible fire...
K Harris

Doesn't sound like a short to me, unless you have smoking wiring as well. This sounds more like intermittent connections, and the fact that you can make them come and go by fiddling with the dip-switch indicates that it is the dip-switch itself that is the problem. My 73 has a dip-switch with 'open' contacts i.e. you can see them and have the potential to burnish them if they are pitted and maybe tweak them to get more tension between them, see http://www.mgb-stuff.org.uk/wn_electricsframe.htm and click on 'Dip-switch'.

With standard lights and original switches whilst relays would only improve brightness slightly, with the quality of replacement switches these days they may be required to avoid premature failure of the new swityches, and if you fit uprated lights relays are definitely required, and individualy filament fuses. See 'Lighting' and 'Uprated Headlamps - Relays and Fuses' also on that page.
Paul Hunt 2

This thread was discussed between 19/10/2007 and 22/10/2007

MG MGB Technical index

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