Headlights shut off engine

redrider044 · 10-02-2008, 04:37 PM

My 1978 928 was just deliverer yesterday. Sorting thru the car, the parking lights work but when I put the headlights on, they popped up & lit up but went down right away. After a few tries, I again turned the headlight's switch on & the only thing that happened was that it caused the engine to stall. I tried a few times with the same results. The stock volt meter only shows about 11volts so I put a volt meter across the battery & it showed 14.2 volts, the starter turns over the engine with no problem. I cranked up the lights manually & they stayed up, bright & on. I shut them off, they went down again. I tried to put them back on & the engine stalled again. I only have two hands so I've been unable to turn on the headlight switch with the volt meter on the battery to check draw. Faulty relay, headlight switch, or wiring?? Any thoughts?

mistertate · mistertate's Garage

My wife's does that too but intermittently and not often enough to get around to fixing at this time. I replaced the seering shaft shim to fix the horn and noticed some pretty hack work had gone on at one point. It's gotta be something in the cluster. If someone knows something I'd love to hear it too. Have you cross posted on Rennlist? Thanks in advance

redrider044 · 10-02-2008, 05:48 PM

Not quite sure how to cross post, I'm new at forums. I'll have to wait for my son to show me how. Probably will be by the weekend.

Alan in AZ · 10-02-2008, 08:31 PM

I'd suspect the headlight grounds at the driver side front clip - in front of the headlight motor - the transistor final stages share this ground - make sure it is all clean and tight.

Alan

redrider044 · 10-03-2008, 06:06 AM

I'll check it out this weekend. I'll have to get a CD type shop manual for this car, because I have a ton of questions. There are a few different ones on E-Bay. Any one in particular you would recomend ? Thank you again.

Danglerb · 10-03-2008, 08:35 AM

Jim Morehouse is the person who spent months gathering up all the manuals, then scanned them with a OCR into searchable text and offers two sets only via email. All the ebay versions are either stealing his work, or lame copies of other sources.

jim928@ptd.net

When you see his work from other sources, take a moment and flag the listing and/or report it as copyright violation.