Td5 Defender, no bloody lights!!

Can anyone help?

On my way to work this morning, bit dingy so put side lights on, no probs, thought oh may as well put main beam on, as soon as I pushed the switch forward again all lights on dad went out, as did the main beam!

I do have side lights, and dash lights when only sidelights on!

I have a feeling its the relay behind dash, not had a chance to investigate as still working, any pointers would be great!! Cheers guys!

Checked the fuse hasnt gone? Does highbeam still work?

Hi bud, haven't checked anything yet, been flt out all day!

Highbeam doesn't work no, I've replaced main light switch and relay behind dash a few months ago with genuine.....

If its a fuse would that also knock my dashlights out when switched to main?

I think they are on different fuses! Not 100% tho

I may be stating the obvious here but the switch mechanism is a weak point on these things. The terminals are embedded in plastic and when this gets hot and goes soft you can lose contact. When this happens you can usually still flash the headlights by pulling the indicator stalk towards you in the normal manner, because the electricity is going a different way.

Brown said:

I may be stating the obvious here but the switch mechanism is a weak point on these things. The terminals are embedded in plastic and when this gets hot and goes soft you can lose contact. When this happens you can usually still flash the headlights by pulling the indicator stalk towards you in the normal manner, because the electricity is going a different way.

Click to expand...

Thanks Brown, I recently replaced the failing (britpart)switch with a genuine one, so I'm hoping its not that as I cant see why it takes the lights off the dash on main beam.but not sidelights. But you never know, and I will check it!

Well.i got home ok, thankful for the clocks going forward afforded me a bit more light on my hour and half drive home!

I have a feeling its the pink relay behind the binnacle cluster on the dash, will swap things with my brothers Td5 over until I find the culprit this weekend! Thanks for the suggestions lads

Just took the light switch off, and it does indeed appear to be the culprit, so cheers @Brown !

Looked inside the switch and you can see the contact tip of the pin for main beam has sunk (because of the plastic holding it I place melting) to just below the contact of the switch! Its also smeared a fine film of molten plastic across the top of the pin! Cant bloody believe it, replaced it in October last year, and its a genuine Lucas one! Bit ****ing annoying, looks like something to carry as a spare from now on!

Gottschalk said:

Just took the light switch off, and it does indeed appear to be the culprit, so cheers @Brown !

Looked inside the switch and you can see the contact tip of the pin for main beam has sunk (because of the plastic holding it I place melting) to just below the contact of the switch! Its also smeared a fine film of molten plastic across the top of the pin! Cant bloody believe it, replaced it in October last year, and its a genuine Lucas one! Bit ****ing annoying, looks like something to carry as a spare from now on!

Click to expand...

Probably another thing to consider is that modification people talk about on here where you run a big fat cable from the battery to the headlights and use the existing headlight wiring merely to operate a relay rather than carry the full headlight load itself. That should keep the switch cool. I keep thinking about doing this myself but haven't quite got round to it. It is on the pipe dream list with the big intercooler and the re-map.

Brown said:

Probably another thing to consider is that modification people talk about on here where you run a big fat cable from the battery to the headlights and use the existing headlight wiring merely to operate a relay rather than carry the full headlight load itself. That should keep the switch cool. I keep thinking about doing this myself but haven't quite got round to it. It is on the pipe dream list with the big intercooler and the re-map.

Click to expand...

Anything you can do to reduce the current through the switch contacts is good. Switching large currents can cause arcing, arcing can cause oxidization, oxidization can cause an increase in the resistance across the switch contacts which will cause heating when a current flows through the switch and eventually failure of the circuit.
Memo to self .... when are you going to get your own headlights done?

Yes, you can see a lot of greenish build up on the contacts of well used switches, so there's a voltage drop across the switch rather than just the load. At least with a relay you can pull it out and replace it cheaply when it wears out rather than £30 odd for a stalk switch mechanism.