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Headlights and front turn signals not working

13K views 13 replies 8 participants last post by  Everett#2390 
#1 ·
Help! I have been trying figure out why my headlights and my front turn signals are not working.

Right now if I pull my light switch to the full out position I get the front valance lights to work, all side marker lights and all tail lights. But no head lights.

When I flip on my turn signal the rear lights blink but no blink up front.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
#5 · (Edited)
DoH !

Sorry, 69 Z28

After another night of searching still no headlights or front turn signals.

When you guys say check the grounds at the headlights do you mean just the black wires on the pigtail going to the lights, or is there another location that I should be checking?

Is there a certain junction point or device that would effect both the headlights and the front turn signals?

Also on the headlight switch could someone tell me which color wire is supposed to go hot when the switch is activated?

Sorry last question, as I continue to search I have seen a post that mentions a ground wire or some type of ground strap at the headlight switch. Can someone give me more details on that? I don't see any extra ground wires at the switch.

Thanks again for any help
 
#6 ·
Yes, black pigtail from lamp socket and the side marker socket, being tied to h/lamp socket, goes to rad support for ground. Park/turn sig socket is grounded through its body to valance, I think.

Tan & light green are hi/lo beam power from the dimmer sw with light blue input from h/lamp switch. Brown is side marker power.

Chilton's Camaro, 1967-1972, copyright 1973.
 
#8 ·
check your floor dimmer switch too. When the connector isnt 'on' all the way, the whole headlight system does funky things. Ask me how I know? Make sure the dimmer part is solidly screwed to the floor making good ground contact. :)
 
#9 ·
Update,,,, It appears someone had hacked up the dimmer switch connections so I was able to repair their mess and the headlights are now working :hurray:

I still have not been able to get the front turn signals to work. When I flip them on the rears will flash correctly and I have located the round flasher unit near the rear of the radio that activates them. Unfortunately it looks like it has been hacked to.

On the round flasher I have one purple wire, one pink wire and another pink that has been cut right at the flasher. At this point I am not sure what I should be looking for, is there supposed to be another flasher for the front or is the cut pink wire my missing link to the front?

Sorry for all the questions, really appreciate your help.
 
#10 ·
Greetings from Arizona
It uses same flasher for front and rear turn signals
there is second flasher for 4-way flashers....Do they work front and rear?
They both use same wiring. If not then I'd get good test light and start checking for powers and grounds at lights and check all connections going back from lights. One common place to look is plugs where wiring comes thur firewall. By the way..do parking lites work?
If no power under hood the its under dash time.. check wiring at turn signal switch connector. you may want to check that first. GOOD LUCK! Jay

PS: Don't know if any one has used a test light called "Power Probe".
it is the best test light I've ever used. you hook it directly to battery so you always have good power and ground connections. it has 20 foot cord so you can test anywhere on car. you probe wires and it lights up and makes different sounds for both circuts, and newer ones even have voltage meter built in to see if you have power loss, and you can add battery voltage with flip of a switch. I carry mine whenever we go out of town to car shows. you never know who might need help. Thought I'd share....Jay
 
#11 ·
Zfuzz there is a seperate ground strap at the light switch. It is somewhat of a flat piece of metal with a wire pigtail on it. I don't have acces of my camera to take a ic of what I am talking about. Check the parts houses. I'm sure they would show a picture. I seems most of our electrical problems come back to making good ground.
 
#12 ·
While driving in city at night, I seen my dash lights blink, then the Headlights, tail lights and all the lights went out, this is scary, First it happened on my 68 Camaro Coupe and safely drove it home here in Las Vegas, NV, was cautious and had no problem, got in the garage and started checking different things, when I touced the floor dimmer switch, it was completely loose, pulled the carpet back and one floor screw was missing and the other loose, plus the switch was corroded, next morning I went and bought a new dimmer switch, put it in and never have had any more problrms on the 68 Camaro,
Then I was driving my 69 Camaro Convertible at night and the same thing happened again, replaced the floor dimmer switch, and again have never had another problem with the lights on either Camaro, Recommendation more than likely your dimmer switch is over 40 years old, For less than $15.00 do yourself a hugh favor and replace the Dimmer Switch with a new one, Easy to replace and well worth it.............................
 
#13 ·
Update,,

Thanks for the all of the info guys it really has helped a lot.

I finally found the issue with the front signal lamps. The problem was the parking lamps would come on but not the turn signals. Last night I discovered the problem to be that the lights bulbs do not line up with the pins in the socket.

I could take the bulbs out spin them 180 degrees and nothing, spin them back and only the parking lamp pin would make contact properly. The turn signal pin was not even close to making contact.

I was able to spin the internal socket on the driver side assembly and got it working perfectly but I am not having any luck spinning the passenger side.

Is there a trick to completely removing the socket from the lamp assembly?
 
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