i like a couple of other people on this forum recently burned my headlight harness by installing higher watt bulbs, i bought a replacement harness from pep boys but now the headlight is dim. thats with piaa superwhites at stock wattage. does anyone know how to correct this problem or has anyone else had this problem?

 

A dim headlight indicates high resistance somewhere in the circuit. Since you damaged the circuit earlier, it could be in the wiring harness, the connectors or the switch. You will need to get a good volt-ohm meter and test the resitance of the entire circuit and compare it to a good headlight circuit. Once you have a base number, you can test each portion of the circuit to identify the bad part.

It sounds a lot more complicated than it is. All you have to do is hook one lead of the meter to one end of the circuit and hook the other lead to the other end.

WARNING: DO NOT MEASURE RESISTANCE ON AN ENERGIZED CIRCUIT! YOU CAN DAMAGE THE METER.

 

here is what I would do... swap headlight bulbs and that will answer if it is just your bulb... are you running super high wattage bulbs... if so I would bet your harness is dying...

 

i already tried swapping bulbs, and it`s still the same. the bulbs are stock as i indicated before. sinewave`s answer sounds like a good one, now if only i knew how to use a volt-ohm meter. i mean i`m pretty good with my hands. but it sounds a little complex, like when i find the bad part how would i fix it?

 

Usually when you do a close inspection of a part with high resistance, you will see physical evidence of the damage. Connectors will have charred contacts or the wires connecting to them will be burnt with brittle insulation.

Repair is pretty straightforward; if the lamp socket is bad, cut it out and install a new one. But do it right. I would slide a piece of heat-shrink tubing over the end of the wire, solder the wire (if it has a crimp connection, crimp then solder) then shrink the tubing over the fitting.

If you have a burnt section of wire, make sure that you cut out all of the bad part. You should have bright, shiney copper to make make your splice.

If you have to replace a damaged section of wire, use solder and heat shrink, don't use the crimp-on splices. In most other situations, crimp-ons are o.k. but I wouldn't use them here because you have a pretty high current in the headlight circuit.