This morning while the power was out at my parents house I finally got around to investigating why one headlight appeared to be burned out. Being such an old car (1974) there are always electrical gremlins running around causing bulbs to unexplainably burn out, or fuses blow. I had a hunch that the bulb was burned out, without checking the fuses because I figured that if it were a fuse both headlights would be out. Here is how I confirmed my hypothesis.
The first thing I did was turned on the headlights to check and see if there was any voltage reaching the headlight. I pulled out my handy multimeter and set it to 20v.
Looking under the fenders I traced back from the headlight to this automotive connector.
I unplugged the connector and put one probe in two different sockets. In my experience working on other vehicles I knew that one socket would be ground, and two would be positive.
9.62V when the headlights are on, Great! That means that I am still getting power to the bulb confirming that the bulb needs to be replaced.
The one thing that sucked about changing the headlight was the way that I accessed the bulb was through the passenger side wheel well. That meant.
1)Jacking up the Car
2)Removing the lug nuts
3)Removing the tire
4)removing the four screws that held the bulb in place
5)Replace the bulb.
6)Replace the screws
7)Reinstall the tire
8)Tighten the lug nuts
9)Lower the car
10) Finally get on the road again!
It really makes me thankful to how simple changing a modern day headlight is! Maybe one day I'll buy a modern vehicle.
But then again...
Maybe not!
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