I've got a short in my right turn signal light, where the wire goes into the plastic socket. I bought a replacement socket, which comes with about 8" of wires and heat-shrink insulation splice connectors. An easy fix if I could get to the wiring to repair it. There's not enough wire on the stock plug to bring it out through the front, and there's not enough room to get your arms down under the head-light mechanism. My old mechanic showed me how to make the head-light stay up by manipulating the switches when you turn the key off, but I can't remember how he did it. It's really easy, but I can't remember. Does anyone know how it's done, or know a better way to get to the wiring to splice in the new socket?

Switch on the lights, unplug the pop-up headlamp motor, then switch off the lights.

Push the switch to raise the lights then using your fingernail pull just the headlight part of the switch back out to turn the light off but leave them up. The other way is to turn on the lights then disconnect the battery. I'd use the second method when working on wiring.

Joe Sokol

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85 SE Daily driver with a 3.4 DOHC OBD II
88 Formula/GT 4.9 Allante Intake (My Baby)

quote Originally posted by Fieroking: Push the switch to raise the lights then using your fingernail pull just the headlight part of the switch back out to turn the light off but leave them up. The other way is to turn on the lights then disconnect the battery. I'd use the second method when working on wiring. Joe Sokol

Thanks Joe and Mr. Brunelle! Sounds like all three ways will work. I think Joe's first method is the way my mechanic showed me.

Uhm...why not just turn the knob on the headlight motors?

quote Originally posted by lou_dias: Uhm...why not just turn the knob on the headlight motors?

I thought of that, but I don't know how to adjust them so they work right, and don't want to mess it up. In fact, four years ago, when my son bought his '85 GT, (before I bought my '86 GT) his head-light wasn't going down, so I messed with the knob, and it worked, and has ever since...dumb luck I guess. But, I just don't know what I'm doing with those knobs. Maybe you can tell me how they work, etc. Sounds like that should work though.

that knob is just so in case your headlights dont go up when you turn your lights on you can force them up. say you turn the knob up and you done fixing you headlight socket turn your lights on then turn them off and all should be well the motors will know where to go.

or you can just take the whole headlight bucket out and have plenty of room. just mark where the nuts holding them in originally went.

The simple safe way is to turn the headlights on, go to the headlight and disconnect the single wire connector right by the headlight relay. Then turn the headlight switch back off. This will prevent any accidental lowering while you have your hands down in there. If the headlight goes down with your hands in there you will be injured.

I agree with outlawfiero17 on this. To replace connectors and splice wiring etc you need a bit of space down there. Easiest option is to disconnect the headlamp unit wiring connector, and remove the whole lamp unit and its bracket. This is easy: remove two nuts at the top, marking the bracket-location with Tipp-ex, and just loosen the two nuts at the bottom. Whole thing can then be lifted out, and you will be able to see and reach the wiring you need to work on.

quote Originally posted by black88fiero: that knob is just so in case your headlights dont go up when you turn your lights on you can force them up. say you turn the knob up and you done fixing you headlight socket turn your lights on then turn them off and all should be well the motors will know where to go.

LOL!....gotcha...it's even written on the knobs, but I ended up doing it Joe's (fieroking) method, which is the same as my mechanic showed me, but I couldn't remember. The switch is designed to do it that way. When the headlights are up, just pull the headlight switch (only...not the parking lights) out with your finger, and it leaves them up when you turn your key off. Then I unbolted the center arm (that pushes them up and down) from the headlight bucket. Then I just pivoted the headlight back out of the way. You have to push the hood forward to allow the headlight door frame to swing back. Really easy.

I was feeling so proud of myself, I found the short in the black ground wire (the one that goes to a special side connection, which I thought rather odd...to have a separate connection on the side for the ground wire..?). Every time I moved it though, it shorted out, but the wire looked good. So I bent the wire along the length, until it shorted, so I new where to cut it to eliminate the short. I then cut the wires, and spliced in the new socket ...giving myself about four more inches of wire, to make changing bulbs easier.

Everything worked great and no more short! So I put everything back together...no sweat! But I was still baffled at the ground wire short. So I stripped the insulation off the old socket ground wire, and there was nothing wrong with it! That's when I discovered the ground wire came out of the back of the socket, but not just the wire! It turns out that the side mounted ground wire isn't hard-wired and sealed in like the others, like I thought. It actually has a male plug and the side mount is a female socket to plug it into. Why...I don't know, but as it turns out, the short really wasn't a short in the wire at all! It had just come loose within that separate side socket. All I had to do was plug it back in! All that work for nothing, and I really felt stupid! What took the most time was re-rapping the new wires with electric tape! Oh well, I can change the turn-signal bulb easier now...lol!

Does any one know why the black ground wire has a separate socket on the side, instead of being hard-wired in the back of the bulb socket, like the rest of them?

[This message has been edited by hypo327 (edited 03-21-2011).]