passenger side headlight bulb dull both main and dip beam

[raptor95GTS]

ok, so the passenger side headlight bulb has this annoying habit of not coming on properly. I mean the headlight unit rises into position ok but the headlight bulb is very dull, almost like a sidelight. Doesn't do that all the time but whenever it suits itself. Using either dip or main beam has the same dull light glow.

Every time I take apart the headlight unit to get in and try and fix it, it works perfectly by the time I take everything apart to test it. Bulb works fine, both dip and main. I've cleaned the bulb contacts, cleaned the connector block but it never seems to be a permanent fix.

Worked perfectly this morning going to work, perfect coming home. LAter same evening went to and from the gym, dull glow from the passenger bulb. Doing my head in Anything else I can look for?

[rgb]

it sounds like a bad earth but I don't know where it is. maybe get a bit of wire and connect it to the earth of the light and the earth of the battery and see if it makes any difference

[raptor95GTS]

if the biblical rain stops I'll give that a try. It worked fine when I left work to drive to the petrol station. Then when i turned the lights back on again, dull on the passenger side again!

looks like this, forgot I'd taken a photo

[shinny]

It's unlikely to be a bad earth, as the lights are ground switched. A bad connection on the common pin of the bulb, the wiring or even a dodgy passenger headlight fuse would cause these symptoms though.

Want to work it out yourself? See the diagram here: http://shinny.co.uk/toyota/MR2_SW_1993_ ... litusa.pdf

My suggestion is to replace the 15A fuse as that's a 1min job with a 20p part.

[raptor95GTS]

cheers shinny I'll have a look at the fuses when I get the car out of the rain. Started tonights journey home with headlight working fine, within 5 minutes it was dull again. I had previously tried a new bulb and got same issue so I'll go through the fuses and see if that sorts it. Will update when I dry out

[shinny]

I thought I'd have a go at this tonight, so I quickly pulled over and whipped out the Left headlight 15A fuse... hey presto, exactly the same result:

[raptor95GTS]

brilliant! I will try this tomorrow hopefully - Abilgail has pretty much covered everything in water, actually it feels like we're being sandblasted! It'll be nice to have both lights working all the time

[androo007]

Shiny you the man

[raptor95GTS]

ok, put on my big boy shoes and went out and found some cover and............... I'm confused.

Pulling the passenger side fuse - makes no difference (as expected) but tested fuse and it was fine...
Pulling both fuses gives nada, not even a dull glow - both lights out completely
Both fuses checked and confirmed ok. Third 15AMP fuse found and confirmed ok

Put the passenger side fuse in and passenger side headlight bright and drivers dull.
Put both fuses in and.... passenger side dull and drivers side bright
remove passenger side fuse and passenger side dull and drivers side bright

Swap the fuses about and both fire up their respective bulb without issue. With both fuses in, passenger side headlight is dull as above.
I checked the fuses when they were inserted and the power was on. Both fuses had 14.25 on both sides of the terminal (probed through the gap in the top of the fuses)