I’m having lighting issues with my ‘93, and wonder if anyone else has faced them. My instrument panel illumination has quit working, and the low beams will go out after being on for a while. Don’t know if it’s related. The low beams usually come back on after a bit, but go out again. Seems to happen more the warmer the weather. High beams still work, along with the park lamps/turn signals/emergency flashers. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

For the low beam issue, look for a burned terminal on a relay behind the center vents. Common issue. The fix is to replace the terminal in the socket, not the relay itself.

Instrument panel lighting? Is the problem confined to the speedometer panel, or does it extend to the lighting in the center console, all controlled by the dimmer rheostat?
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Art Benstein near Baltimore

A man rushed into a busy doctor's office and shouted, "Doctor! I think I'm shrinking!" The doctor calmly responded, "Now, settle down. You'll just have to be a little patient."

Thanks Art, I’ll check at the relay. Just the two gauge cluster lights are out. All other interior lights are working fine.

Here’s an update. Turns out instrument lamps had both burned out at the same time. Still having trouble with the low beams. Checked the wiring and found no problems. Replaced the headlight bulbs, the relay behind the vents, and the headlight switch since they were cheap. Also cleaned out the dimmer/turn signal switch. However, the low beams will not stay on, and they are getting worse. Any other thoughts? Isn’t there another relay under the hood?

Turns out the problem was a lose connection at the underhood headlight relay. Took a bit of tightening on the female to get it to stay out. Thanks to all for the help!

Just a correction... it isn't the relay behind the vents that goes bad, it is the socket. I may have not been clear enough about that.

Another plug-in part that's prone to put the low beams out of service is the BFWS, or Bulb Failure Warning Sensor. It is an orange-red tomato can shaped relay located above your knees in the dash. Kinda expensive to guess at, though. Much better if you can trace the voltage while the symptom is occurring.

I know it would be a whole lot nicer if we could just fix our cars by doing nothing more than plug-in parts, because in this cold weather, that's about all I hope to do.

The first image is for the late production 93, recognized by the fuse array at the battery post. The second image is a little easier to read, but fits the 91 model, so you can see the differences side by side.




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Art Benstein near Baltimore

Money can't buy you happiness... but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery. - Spike Milligan

Hi,

Yes, there is a beam "dipper" relay that changes the beams from high to low.
It is located on the left side fender or driver side.

It is an oblong sliver metallic box with plugs coming up to the bottom.
Lots of times the terminals get corroded due to their position.

The box can be opened for inspection, after you uncurl the tabs along its base.
You might want to do this to look for moisture infiltration.

You can hook up a battery to the coils terminals to observe the simple operation of the toggling arm that opens and closes the contacts to the beams. I have had one or two get sticky.
It's all mechanical and rarely fails but electricity gets "mad at resistances" and this causes heat.
Heat can build up until the circuit fails or its lights out in your case.

Again it's mostly the terminals.
It is why Art took you to the socket behind the vents. This is very common place on lots of cars.
I have not had that issue with any of my cars but I feel it depends a lot on humidity locations over the many years.
The use of anti corrosion sprays and paste being used during repairs in the area of all connections is worth the efforts!

IMHO

Phil.

Phil,

This is just one more of those things that make a '93 different. That hi/lo relay is on the right side. They moved it. Just for the one year. :)


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Art Benstein near Baltimore

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. - Mark Twain

HI Art,

Thanks Art for that information.
I acquired acquired a '93 around the first of November and have not looked over the car yet for those finer details.
I have parked it for most of the winter until I can replace the struts. She put on new tires and I don't want to mess those up. I will need to change the oil in the manual transmission as second and fourth have a very wee bit of noise. They must have been used the most.
The car has a non working A/C too boot.
I got this car for about half my 1992 costs.
I did put it up on my lift to get a gander of the underneath and that was about all before I moved south for the winter. I will visit it again next month to survey my house and look for that relay.

I have read, in the past, about some changes only to the '93.
I just saw Kitty's post about the timing belt having rounded teeth instead of square ones. Is this unique to only the '93 also?

I do have a '92 also.
David Samuels had replaced everything on the front of engine and far as that goes, on the whole car, before I bought it from him.
So, I don't plan on peeking in there anytime soon.
This is sooo going to mess with my stock of maintenance parts inventory. Can't say I was prepared for any additional stuff!

In looking over your next post about the BFWS I can see why you can make your point about the low beams.
That little detail in those illustrations shows that the low beams are the only ones that go through it! That was nice of you to post it. I added it to my reading list!

I will have to look for posts that involve differences of the 1993 now! (:(
Guess I should have thought twice about walking away from it. I did make sure it did not have a LH 3.1 though.

Thanks Art!

Phil