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Headlight main beam dim and internals removal for earth fix

infrasilver

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I have been trying to get to the bottom of an issue I have had for a couple of years with my main beam headlight on the nearside. It will only come on dim and will work if I push the headlight unit in but will only work for a short while again. I thought it may be bad earth but also could have been the plug not seating correctly.

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Anyway my MOT is next week so I took the headlight out again and tried to make the plug a better fit, nothing I did fixed this but when I took the side light out to have a look inside I could see a loose brown (earth wire) so now I think this is my problem and I have tried to get the yellow plug out of the headlight but it is so deep inside I can't release it.
It was only working previously as the wire end was sitting against the pin just making contact, when I push the headlight in it must make a slightly better contact.

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Does anyone know how to remove the plug in the headlight so I can fix the wire? Is there a clip or similar, it must come out somehow?
 
Looks to me like the purple strip is a retaining strip and needs to slide out of the way to release the yellow plug from the black lugs that hold it in position in the headlight :?:

Automotive plugs can be a pain in the butt :grin:

I`ll pop one of mine out and have a look at it when I get home tomorrow :thumb:
 
Thanks KK, yours may be slightly different in orientation as I think the pre-facelift's plug is north/south where as this is east/west. The space to get in there through the sidelight hole is so small I'm unsure I can even get to that purple strip.
There are also two bridges over the purple strip you can see in the picture, I thought these may be clips but they do nothing if I push them in with a screwdriver.
 
If I remember correctly, from popping the headlights out last time, the plugs/sockets on my 996.1 are horizontal on their longest dimension, so probably the same as 996.2 :thumb:

I unfortunately do have a broken socket mounting on the N/S, so have to faff about to plug it back in :sad: one of the on the list jobs to do :grin:
 
Weirdly I have my headlights on a radiator right next to me trying to dry the condensation out of the indicators.

Mine are 3.4 996.1 headlights and the plugs are vertical.

On these there are screws retaining the plug to the body of the light.

Sorry not much use to you!

P.s anyone know what the white loose plugs are for internally in these and what the extra black box in the right headlight is? EDIT: this is for the level adjustment next to the headlight switch.
 
I found a thread from 2010 of someone with the same broken wire and they stripped all the internals from the headlight to get to the rear of this plug, I tried to get everything out of mine today but failed, I have removed every screw but the whole unit still won't come out of the rear of the headlight. I may have to jumper the earth wire from another earth wire inside the headlight?
 
I have managed to fix my broken earth wire and what a ball ache it was, although now I have done it once it will make it a whole lot easier to do it again. With hardly any information online this was a trial and error job.

I think my O/S headlight is also on its way out as my side light is flickering I noticed. I assume this may become a more common problem as the 996 gets older so I thought I would continue the steps taken to get this fixed.

I did have to strip the internals out of the headlight and this was my second attempt as I failed the first time.

Firstly remove the back headlight cover and remove the earth cable and rubber grommet then unplug the dipped beam/Litronic connector, this will allow you to release the cover out of the way. Unplug all the electrical connectors.

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Take the self leveling motor off and pop the ball and socket from behind this.
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Next remove the side screw that holds the headlight beam adjuster (manual and self leveling) and put a flat blade screwdriver into the clip and slide the unit out.

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Remove three screws that hold the main beam reflector to the dipped beam unit. Again there are two ball and socket to pop off.

The purple clip as KK mentions above does need to be slid out but unfortunately there are also 4 clips that need to be pressed in. Two are on top with reasonable easy access with a small screwdriver but there are also two underneath, which have little access, I used a couple of McDonalds stirrers taped together and slid them under to be able to release all four at the same time, this was the worst part of the job and took ages to get off.

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Once off I had to slide two thin bits of plastic into the top and bottom of the pin to release the broken part out.

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And the offending piece.
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I removed this pins outer cage and soldered a new piece of wire to it.
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I then put the cage back around the pin as this is used as the locating part of the pin and heat shrunk the end of the cable.
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Then pushed it back in and soldering the other end to the wires that had originally broken. I added the extra length of wire as I think the reason it had broke was this was the only wire on the plug with three wires going into it and the pressure had made the pin break over the years.

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As mentioned I noticed my drivers side side light was flickering so I suspect this one is next for repair. The earth cable i repaired was for indicator, main beam and side light, so if you are having issues with any of those flickering or lighting up dim you may need to repair the internal earth wire. Cheaper than £2000 for a new headlight

Next fix, probably.
 
Well done mate, looks like a real PITA though :thumb:

I intend to sort mine out over Christmas, give them a good polish and fit some HIDs, so I can see where I`m flying down the lanes in the dark :grin:
 
What a pain.

Headlights ae well sealed but any moisture that gets in the headlights can't get back out.

I found water in my indicators after the recent wet weather.

I think it was caused by my carefully dawdling through puddles, and 4x4s coming the other way at full speed causing a tidal waves to go over the car!

I had them drying out in the house....I was tempted to put a bag of desiccant in there, then that will stop a new eco system forming in there in future.
 

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