'94 Acclaim - No Headlights in Cold Weather

And the browsers used by those of us not so stupid as to use Exploder.

 

I am not stupid and I use IE. I would use Firefox more if it didn't have a
problem with the executable looping and maxing out my processor at times. I
have even had it where the executable was still running looped and burning
proc cycles even though the program window was closed. I had to kill the
little bugger with task manager.

 

No comment.

 

The key to using it for me has been to 1. turn off the built in popup
blocker, 2. use the google toolbar, and 3. always read everything twice to
make sure it is legit before clicking on that stupid yellow bar at the top
that warns the noobs that the site they are visiting just might want to
install something.
I have never had any spyware on my computer and AVG 7 free edition quite
happily throws any and all virii (usually from java) in the virus vault for
me to delete. If you are the kind that enjoys clicking "OK" on every little
thing that pops up then yes IE will have your system trashed in a matter of
minutes. The thing that really pi$$e$ me off is the number of programs that
want to install the damn yahoo toolbar. Adobe reader of all things had the
damn yahoo toolbar in its list of available updates.

 

I have seen voltage on A3 when the headlights are working properly. I
haven't seen voltage when the headlights are turned on, but not working,
even though the parking lights are on. Which doesn't make sense. I must not
be probing correctly. From what you say, if the parking lights are on, there
should be voltage on A3. When the problem arises, I don't get too much time
to probe. The lights seem to come on in a few minutes. I will try this again
when it gets cold, and the only thing that lights up is the parking lights.


L2 definitely does not show any voltage when the headlamps refuse to work.
So I started up the car and turned on the heater with the intention of
heating things up to see if the lights came on, and the lights came on in
about 30 seconds, before there was any heat. L2 read 13.5 volts with the
engine on, and 11 volts when I turned the engine off. With the engine off,
the lights will work until the car sits idle for awhile in cold (below 22
degrees Fahrenheit) weather. I will change the headlamp switch and see if
all these "peculiarities" go away.

This may be premature, but I will ask anyway. I mentioned that my mechanic
changed the PCM in the course of resolving a fault code 41 issue. You
mentioned that another source of headlamp problems can be Daytime Running
Lights found in Canadian vehicles. My car is not a Canadian vehicle and has
never had DRL. But is it possible that my mechanic might have installed or
configured something so the car "thinks" it is Canadian and has DRL? Are
different components (PCM's) used in the Canadian cars?

 

You're right, it doesn't.

Should be!

I've still got your headlamp switch as a primary suspect, with firewall
pass-through connection and beam-selector switch as secondary suspects.

Nope. The PCM doesn't know if the car has DRLs or not; on these cars, the
DRL module and associated wiring are completely independent.

DS

 

Sorry to interrupt here...

There's a good possibility that you aren't getting consistent contact
on your VOM positive lead to the headlight switch A3 wire. This would
cause the erroneous test results as you surmised.

I noticed a circuit breaker built into the headlight switch that trips
from excess current through A3. Failed CBs can cause the flaky,
"completely on one second", "completely off the next" situation you are
experiencing. One thing to think about is that if this is your
culprit, you may be able to tap the switch and get the lights to
flicker. Also visually check any high current connections for signs of
overheating if you are removing them anyway.

Toyota MDT in MO

 

I'm not joking. What you are describing is interesting and informative,
maybe for me in the future, but not really completely on target. I
liked the implementation. It was smooth and flawless. Usually I get
this with Java. But I was impressed that a simple web page has have two
sizes, really all that was needed. One to see what I am in the diagram
and another to see what is actually being "said."

I have not see this toggle in many places. Usually it's multiple clicks
on images - annoying waste of clickery. In this case, it's a toggle. I
don't use IE except when I have Flash to display and it's already
checked as you described almost - it's not the first thing under
multimedia in my particular system. Is what you describe a pure toggle?
That's what I was referring to. I have not come across toggles much.
That's one click to expand and one click to compress and one click to
expand and one click to compress. Who me joking?