While I was removing headlight buckets I went to unplug the headlights and noticed that the plug on the harness that plugs into the headlights are different from the drivers side and the passengers side. Is this normal? If not, does someone have a pic of the plug so I can figure out which was changed? The passengers side headlight (the actual light) doesn't work and even when I plugged the new headlight I got nothing. I tried the new headlight on the drivers side and the bulb is good. Anything I'm missing?

Thanks in advance,
Bill

Not the best picture in the world, but here's what I've got:



The most likely cause of your passenger side headlight not working is a bad ground especially if neither the high nor low beams are working. If you follow the black wire in the loom starting at the headlight bulb and working backwards, you'll see it leads to an eyelet held to the sheet metal sidewall of the headlight recess on the frame. The screw is likely corroded and needs some TLC.

If that's not it, then post back here and I or someone else can help troubleshoot the power side of the circuitry.

I checked and cleaned off the ground wire and bolt, but it didn't do the trick. Now that I've look at it closer and checked the pic you posted it's without a doubt a different plug.

Thanks for the help.
Bill

There will be a slight difference in that the left headlamp connection will have two wires in two of the three connectors and the right will only have one in all three connections. The right headlamp gets its power for both the low and high beams from the left headlamp. I’d use a test light (with the lights on) and check for power and ground on the connector. The tan wire is the low beam, the light green is the high beam and the black is the ground (I think. I’d need year and engine to confirm). To check the ground you really need connect the test light to a known positive source and probe the ground.

Firejo24 is correct about the wire colors and their function. Since the power wires are just jumped from the driver's headlight to the passenger headlight, there must be a break in both wires as they cross over to the passenger side. My first bet would be that the strange connector on the passenger side was spliced on by a previous owner and the splices on each wire have probably failed. Route back along the tan and green wires for the location of the splices and make sure they're still solid.

If you have a mulitmeter, you can also test for 12V on both wires separately by turning on the headlights, selecting the 20VDC range on your meter, placing the red meter lead through the back of the tan terminal of the headlight connector, and the black meter lead to a known good ground. You should get 12V on the tan wire with the low beams on and 12V at the green wire with the high beams on.

If that's not the case, then perhaps both wires got pinched somewhere and cut by the hood or perhaps from a fender bender. The wire loom running from the LH to RH side can't be easily accessed unless you remove the hood. Trust me... I just converted a car from gen1 to gen2 lights and was hoping I could get away without removing the hood... to no avail. It's easy though if you first mark the location of the headlight door nuts (2 per side), remove the doors, then do the same for the 4 hood to hinge bolts (not the hinge to chassis bolts) by reaching in through the headlight door holes while the hood is closed but not latched. With the hood off, you can easily remove the wire harness to check for breakages.

Thanks for the help everyone.

I'm getting my hands on an original 87 harness and plan on getting the setup back to original. This cars had to many previous owners hands in it and a lot of "cut and paste" work done on it.

Bill.