High Beams Work, But No Low Beams - This is an interresting one.... (Pics)

[NewfoundlandDude]

I just finished installing my new ground wire kit, and convieniently, it got dark about 15 mins before I finished. I turned on my car to make sure that I had no tools left lying around the driveway, and all I had were my fogs. (Picture 1)(Haha, Be careful what you wish for, I had just printed off a how-to re-wire your fog lights relay so that they can stay on whenever you want i.e. With High beams).

I figured that maybe the extra ground wires that I ran to each headlight ground were not actually grounding, but when I turned on the high beams, they worked perfectly?? (Picture 2)

I was out for a drive two nights ago when I got my car back from the shop, and decided to take a few quick night-time pictures in a parkinglot. When I got out, the lights (Low Beam) seemed to be quite dim to me, but after I flicked them to High Beam they seemed to be bright as ever, so I Ignored it. I also looked at the three attached pictues here and figured that it was just me being paranoid........But if you look closely, the headlights don't look as bright as the fogs in the pictures (I have the Xenon H4 and H3 plug & play lights from EuroDezigns).

Does anyone have an idea of why the Low beams would go, and not the High beams?? I am assuming there is a fuse blown somewhere maybe?? Any help would be greatly appreciated......

[brianw]

Remove the extra grounds to the headlights, see if that fixes the problem.

Grounding your headlights is actually pretty silly-- Nissan uses pretty thin wire to the entire harness, so if you really want your headlights to be brighter, you should wire 'em with a relay directly to the battery with some decent wire...

[NewfoundlandDude]

Might get a chance to do that tomorrow, it's 11:30 here now, and pitch black outside. Why would the High beams work, and not the low beams if it were a grounding problem??? I just stuck two grounds on the headlights because I took your advice and threw out all of that brass-looking stuff and just went with the wires running throughout the engine bay. I ran an extra wire from the negative terminal to the negative ground on the engine. I ran two grounds from the throttle body to a left-over hole on the body from the stock air-box, and attached another wire from this spot to the negative ground on the engine. I then ran the other two wires from a bolt on the timing chain housing and the passenger side headlight to the negative ground on the engine.

I was restricted to where I could put the wires because they only sent two long wires, three medium wires, and two about 14" long. I didn't expect to get much "Performance" from these wires if you will, but they do look nice in there (as far as I could see in the dark), and hopefully will avoid any grounding problems in the future.

So, I'll ask again since I wrote quite a bit there, why would the low beams go, and the high beams work if it were a grounding problem?

I'm also curious as to why I thought the lights were dim the other night. Could it be anything else obvious???

[NewfoundlandDude]

Removed the grounds to the Headlights.....Nothing. Checked the fuse box near the Battery & the 15A fuse if fine. What else could it be??

[brianw]

Did you undo the foglight rewire-- did you actually do it?

It might be your imagination at this point, fogs are very bright focused up close, headlights are aimed further out for wider dispersion.

[NewfoundlandDude]

I never did the Fog Light Re-Wire. All I did was install extra grounds. I un-did the grounds and I still have a problem. As you can see from the pictures above, the low beams are completely black and give no light, and the high beams are very bright. I know it is not my imagination, since the high beams show up so good, and the low beams are competely dark.....

[brianw]

Obvious question: are the bulbs good? Can you check the harness with a multimeter to make sure you're getting proper voltage to the bulbs in the off/low/high positions?

[NewfoundlandDude]

I've been out in the country all weekend so I didn't update this, sorry guys.I checked the bulbs with a multimeter, and as they have three contacts to make different circuits for high beam, low beam, and running lights, I just checked each way for continuity. I realized that the low beam circuit was blown, so I picked up another set....... Thanks for the help.....