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1997 Pontiac Sunfire Headlight not lighting even with bulb

Tiny
BRAN1010
  • MEMBER
  • 1997 PONTIAC SUNFIRE
1997 Pontiac Sunfire

Hi there!

This is a fairly bizarre problem I think. And need help for sure.

The headlight in front of the drivers seat (the right headlight, I think?) Stopped working recently. Thinking the bulb blew, I replaced it and fitted everything back in. Oddly, the light still didn't work. The other one worked fine.

Thinking it might be a fuse problem next, I checked the fuses to see if they were dirty. I cleaned the blue fuses off, re-inserted them, and still found it wasn't working.

Now! What I did was, swap the left and right headlight fuses around, to see what would happen then. The same thing happened, with the working light working, and the non-working light still not working.

So what I did next was take the right headlight fuse out (the top one), to see what'd happen. What happened was that both lights worked, but were very dim. So I dont think its a wiring problem?

Any help? Guidelines?
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Saturday, March 7th, 2009 AT 11:35 AM

3 Replies

Tiny
F4I_GUY
  • MECHANIC
  • 3,302 POSTS
In your wiring harness there is a joint where one wire spreads off to two wires leading to both headlights. Usually this joint corrodes and kills the power to one headlight.

I will try and find a wiring schematic for you.

Have you checked if yo uhave power getting to the bulb? If you have very low voltage reaching the socket, that is most likely your issue.
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Saturday, March 7th, 2009 AT 7:53 PM
Tiny
BRAN1010
  • MEMBER
  • 2 POSTS
That'd be much appreciated.

And. I have no real clue how to find out if it's getting power. Cars are definitely not my thing!

Is new wiring and such hard/difficult to replace? Whats a rough price on getting that done?

Cheers!
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Sunday, March 8th, 2009 AT 3:49 PM
Tiny
F4I_GUY
  • MECHANIC
  • 3,302 POSTS
To measure voltage at the headlight, remove the headlight bulb connector and one of the pins should of voltage. With a voltmeter or test light. Hook the black or negative lead to a chassis ground and the red lead or test light to the pins. You should see voltage with the headlights turned on.

Usually you will pay a minimum of 1 hour labour for diagnostic, depending on what the problem is
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Sunday, March 8th, 2009 AT 4:22 PM

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