Uneven headlight brightness

Ey up all,

Wondering if I can pick the collective brain regarding electrics! (yey!!).

Problem is as follows...

1 - When normal headlights are on the near side light is as if it was on main beam and the right is ok
2 - When main beam is turned on the off side is at main beam strength but the near side drops back to what could be called 'normal' brightness.
3 - When main beam is held/flashed on the spring loaded part of the stick both appear as they should - bright!

The wipers also tend to stay on after prolonged use even when they are turned off!

I'm driving a 27 year old ex-military defender. Wiring is the original (ish) and not been touched in my ownership. There is a 2 amp, give or take, current remaining in the loom which was discovered during a previous issue.

Hard to be specific of course but generally speaking could it be...

Dodgy switches/sticks?
Just old wiring?
Bad connections to the bulbs?

All of the above!?

Suggestions much appreciated on anything that I can try but I have the following amount of technical electrical knowledge = Nowt! and I'm northern so keep it simple ;-)

I have the same problem with mine in terms of full beam turns off the main lights and just flashing full beam is fine, so I'm interested to see what the problem is.

Southernlandy said:

I have the same problem with mine in terms of full beam turns off the main lights and just flashing full beam is fine, so I'm interested to see what the problem is.

Click to expand...

you need a new stalk switch

Sounds like you need to do some investigating with a volt meter.

I think I would start at the lamps themselves. Pull the terminal off the back of the bulb and check both are wired the same.

12v dipped in the same position in the multi plug. High beam etc.

Possibly sounds like someones mixed the terminal positions up in these connectors.

Or it's the stalk

When you say the wiring hasn't been touched during your ownership...

a) Has it always been like this/when did it start doing it

b) How long have you owned it

Thanks Locky...I'll have a dig around tomorrow and see if they're the same or not.


@Marmaduke - I've had it coming up 2 years and it's always had a slightly dimmer near side headlight but hardly noticeable at all tbh. Seems to have got worse over the last couple of days/weeks maybe but hard to tell with accuracy due to the time of year...light nights, reasonably good weather etc

There was an issue when spot lights were fitted but this was resolved with a separate wiring job by-passing the main loom and they've been fine since but have had occasions when the horn stopped working but a quick 'jiggle' (A technical term there I think) of the glass fuses seemed to rectify it so going to give the fuse/fuses box a good check over and clean tomorrow and see what happens...