One headlight dim

[DarylInDurham]

Hi All,

My son just bought his first car (he's 16). It's a 1988 Nissan Pulsar NX with the CA18DE engine and manual transmission. He bought it "as is" and without me getting a good look at it so of course the car has some issues.
One of the issues we're trying to resolve is that the right hand headlight is considerably dimmer than the left. I traced the problem to the fuse box and discovered a blown fuse for the RH headlight. I put a 15A fuse in there and it blew the instant the lights were turned on. I then put a auto-resetting fuse in it's place and started tracing the wires to try and find the short. Wasn't that hard to find...just had to feel which wires were getting hot.

The hottest spot was the wiring harness that goes into the diode pack (Harness 105M according to the FSM). I unplugged the harness and no more popping of the fuse (no lights either!) I'm assuming the diode pack is the culprit.

For something like this I usually just go to my local wrecker. The problem is that nobody close have any Nissan Pulsars in stock. I'm going to try to find something compatible from a similar model or year. I'd buy new but until I am 100% certain the diode is indeed the problem I'd rather save my money.

Does anyone know what other models and/or years the lighting diode used on the 88 Pulsar's are? Is there maybe a cross-reference resource somewhere on the web I can use? I know the Nissan Part number is 24335-V5000 but that's as far as I get. If I knew the years and models this diode was used on the likelihood of me finding something would be much higher.

Not sure if anyone else has had this happen but if you did please let me know if it was the lighting diode or something else...I'd hate to replace the diode only to discover I've still got the problem...

Thanks in advance for the replies!

Cheers,
Daryl

[centralcoaster33]

Hmmm, those diodes can be hard to track down. I'm still looking for one for my harness build project in my 240sx... I've been all over the Nissan harnesses in the few junk yards we have here. Anyway, as far as should you replace the diode goes, test it! Here's a neat article I just found:
http://en-us.fluke.com/training/trainin ... meter.html