Hi all. I have an 80 series3. Having all sorts of headlight trouble. No headlights, turn signals, running lights or brights in front. Rear running lights and plate lights work. The only time my headlights will turn on is when I hit the bright switch. I have the diagram but what I need is an actual photo of the relay to headlight fuse box. Thanks in advance,Dan
Dan,
Attached is a picture of the engine bay of my 1984 XJ6 Vanden Plas with the Headlamp Relay circled in red and the Headlamp Fuse Box circled in blue. I know that the engine bay of your earlier 1980 SIII is a little different but I suspect that these components and their location are probably the same.
Paul
Dan,
that doesn’t sound like relay troubles, but more like fuses, contacts, grounds - and maybe switches.
How much homework have you been doing so far? Checked fuses for the headlights - not just visually, but with a test light behind the fuse? There is a fuse for the switching circuit in the fuse box underneath the steering wheel and there are fuses for the operating circuits mounted in the engine bay as per Paul’s advice. Turn to the headlights’ ground connection then and maybe check the lighting units by jumping positive from the battery.
Finally, does the hazard work? If it does, the flasher relay, the flasher units and the flasher grounds are good and you may turn your attention to the indicator stalk.
Good luck
Jochen
75 XJ6L 4.2 auto (UK spec)
Solved! It was a combination of poor connections and a bad relay! Cleaned all of the connections, replaced the relay and it’s all good!
Thanks for the help!
Dan,
Thank you for posting back so that others reading this string or searching the archives will benefit from your work.
It’s nice when the fixes are relatively easy and as Jochen correctly mentioned in his post the contacts, fuses, and grounds are the most likely suspects followed shortly by the relays and switches.
Paul
Hi Paul, thanks! I completely rebuilt the headlight loom and replaced all the grounds. The confusion came from the fact that the donor car,an 86 and my car,the 80 had slightly different wiring. My car had two blue/red wires coming from the relay and the donor had one so I had to figure out how to make all the proper connections. I referred to my diagram book and found that I could use a two wire connector between the relay,fuse box and loom. I’ll post pictures tomorrow before I button it all up. I may just solder all of those connections permanently. Cheers! Dan