Spotlight fault

[Bflego]

Hi Guys,

My 2010 Hilux has a set of light force 240 blitz spottier. As it has had for the last 5 years. In the last fortnight they have stopped working.
Brief run down,
Everything use to always work fine. Spotties and LH headlight have stopped working. LH headlight keeps blowing fuses, I replace and turn on. Blows fuse straight away. Checked all wiring and everything is fine. Replaced the relay and that seemed to have fixed the problem. However 2 weeks later it has now done the same fault or fuses and relay blown

Any ideas of where to look?

Cheers

[martynvella]

Without prejudice.

First checked that the spotties have been wired correctly and that the headlight fuse isn't carrying the load of the spotties.

Make sure that high power headlight bulbs haven't been fitted somewhere along the way and melted wiring inside the light fittings.

If all is ok there then you need to isolate the spotlight circuit, find where the spotlight wiring joins into the hi beam wiring and either disconnect it for a while and see if the headlights work ok or place a very small value fuse in the pick up line about 1/4 the value of the headlight fuse, depending on what fuse blows you will have isolated the circuit the short is in, then very close examination in the faulty circuit wiring will find the fault.

If the short is intermittent and you feel confident not to set fire to your car, carefully wire in a 50 or so watt bulb across the blown fuse for tracing purposes only, and I mean carefully because if the 2 wires you poke in the fuse holder touch eachother you WILL melt your wiring harness and possibly set fire to your car.
This bulb will limit the current flowing in the circuit when the short is present by glowing brightly, it and the headlight bulb will glow at about half strength when theshort isnt present, then with someone watching the bulb follow the harness giving it a poke and wobble anywhere it comes in contact with metal and a change in the bulb will tell you when your in the right spot.

Do that last step totally at your own risk and if you dont feel confident and dont want to have a very bad day, then get an auto sparky to do it .

[Terror]

I would unplug the spotlights themselves and then see if it still happens - to remove possibility of an internal fault in one of the spotlights.

If it still happens, isolate the spotlight wiring from the headlight wiring - to figure out if its the factory headlight wiring or the spotlight wiring causing the issue.

Places I would double check for a short circuit would be where the wire goes through the firewall, make sure its not rubbed through on any metal, and behind the dash and also the switch itself.

Check for water in any connectors etc.