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headlights on and the system gets buggy

766 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  Canuck64ss
67 chevelle former drag car now set up for the road. well all signals, 4-way flashers and
dimming the interior dome light work fine
when headlight switch is off. But when the
headlight switch is pulled things get funny
or should i say infuriating. to start if the dash lights are turned up the fuel guage will
gradualy go to empty and all signal lights & hi-beam in dash will be lit regardless if a signal is pulled left or right. but as i dim the interior dash lights everything seems to get back to normal till i'm riding in the dark and
don't know how fast i'm going. i thought it was the reostat in the headlight pull because the problem only reared it's ugly head when the
interior dash lights were "turned-up", but i have
since tried 2 new head light switches to
no avail :confused: i've read previous posts
here and grounding seems to be a big issue,
so i tried adding an extra ground to the headlight switch (housing) but that didn't seem to work either so i'm asking for any suggestions.

the car works perfect in the daylight hours
but turn those headlights on & dash lights up
and it gets wierd
+ I like to see how fast i'm going when i'm driving home in the dark

thanks in advance
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You didn't mention if you are now using halogen lights or not. Assuming that you are, you would be drawing too much juice through that pesky little breaker and IT WILL cause this and other problems with your lighting system. This is one of those problems that will take a few minutes to occur but as time goes on & problem is un-corrected it will get worse. The factory breaker can be replaced and it probably should be done as a matter of course. The breaker is a 15 Amp unit and is located on the panel (per the Canadian Diagrams for the car).

The solution is to install additional grounds to your panel and to the forward light harness. These are usually (factory) thin guage and often suffering green corrosion. Next, get a lighting relay kit and install it so that the headlight switch no longer has to handle that load.

Additional thought... If you are inclined to get a little modern (up to date) you can replace your 1156, 1157, with LED bulbs. I am not sure if there is an LED replacement for the 1816's in your cluster. It will save a lot of juice and work really nicely.

Hope it Helps.
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