Help with Headlights not working.

[joe912/62]

Yesterday I removed the steering wheel on my 82SC to replace the
high beam indicator light in the Tach. I was also having trouble with the high beam flashers as they were very low when pulling back the switch.
I replaced the bulb and read on another post to clean the contacts on the turn signal
switch. I noticed that the metal tangs had become gummed up so I cleaned them and pried them apart a little.
The indicator bulb (I used a LED) works fine and the high beam flashing works good when lever is pulled forward, turn signals work too.
Now the headlight won’t come on. The parking lights work as well as the interior dash lights. I did notice a bit of light smoke coming from behind the turn signal switch but thought it was because I had the horn contact switch off and the wires may have touched.
Do you think it’s a problem with the headlight switch or turn signal switch?
Any help would be appreciate.

[targa80]

I get the impression that before you did maintenance on the low/high headlights switch it all worked except for the issue of the high beam indicator light and the high beam flasher was dim. The releasing of a puff of smoke from an electrical component is never a good thing and is probably directly related to the loss of headlight operation. It could be as simple as a blown fuse, or more complicated issue of a damaged switch, or in a worst case damaged wires.

Questions:

1. Do you have a multimeter and do you have the technical knowledge to use it?
2. Do you have a schematic and do you have the technical knowledge to trace the circuit flow based on the schematic?

I am asking these questions because you will need that knowledge to fault isolate the lack of power to the headlights. If you lack these skills then I would suggest taking the car to a reputable car repair shop with a good electrician.

If you have the tools/ schematic and capability then document your test results I.e. fuses are good, power good to light switch but no power at low beams etc based on normal operation of the effected equipment.

There are two methods of troubleshooting:

1. Shotgun method- keep changing parts until it works hopefully.
2. Use a logical process of fault isolating the fault using the schematics and test equipment (multimeter) and comparing to normal operating conditions. Then just replacing the part that is isolated to be the cause of the fault.

I’m sorry that I cannot be more help than that at this time.