Hi all,

First problem I'm bumping up against that I can't seem to figure out solo. Noticed on my new '99 Sport that the headlights were dim; I ordered a set of SilverStars, stuck them in the garage, and went to put them in this evening. The driver's side is great, but the passenger side is dim and yellow, as if it's not getting the right amount of electricity. I switched the stock headlight back in to confirm that it wasn't a headlamp-specific issue, same problem. I pulled and checked the fuses in the box inside the passenger-side footwell; all of the headlamp fuses are fine.

I think I have narrowed it down to:

- Bad (unlabeled?) fuse in the power distribution box in the engine compartment
- Ground issue somewhere
- Bad harness in the actual headlight


Not sure how to troubleshoot 1 or 2. Does anyone have a label/list of what the small fuses in the engine-compartment fuse box are, and also, where are the ground connections that I want to check?


Thanks!

 

Update 1: none of the fuses are blown, and I've cleaned the contacts in the harness. Still no joy, and still pretty stuck. New multimeter is coming today, will check the harness when it arrives.

Update 2: fixed. With the meter, I was able to trace a lack of voltage when the light switch was on either low or high; I clipped it out, and soldered in a new 3-prong harness from Autozone (Dorman 85810), which solved the issue. Wrapped the soldered joints in electrical tape to prevent future shorts, and voila, done.

Should anyone ever run into a similar problem, when looking at the harness, the rightmost connector is for high beams, the top is for low, and the left is for ground. On my '99 XJ Sport, the high wire was red, the low wire was black with a purple stripe, and the ground was plain black.

 

So you're saying that you had a short in the 3-prong connector at the passenger-side headlight, and you simply replaced the connector? I'm trying to understand exactly what & where you clipped and replaced.
Same exact problem on my 2000 XJ w/165k miles. Passenger-side light is dim on high or low-beam.