I have a 95 firebird and have been trying to track down this issue for weeks, here is the backstory:

-I bought the car from a guy who put some weird aftermarket lights in, they were not HID's, just looked like blue bulbs. He also changed the connector at each headlamp. When you turned on the lights, the high beam indicator was partially lit (lowbeam setting), when you turn the highbeams on the indicator goes full bright.

-So I cut out the old connectors and wired in new gm ones, and installed new stock style lights. The issue was still there, at night the low beams don't light up anything, and the brights seem to be just bright enough to be low beams.

-I checked the grounds at the connector and they're fine, I used a voltmeter and with the low beams on, the low beam circuit shows 14v at the connector, and approximately 7v on the highbeam circuit.

-I now have even changed the highbeam switch on the column and still have the same issue.


Any ideas on what I should check next? Should the highbeam circuit be getting 7v even though the stalk is on the lowbeam setting?
I'm at my wits end here

Thanks

 

If you are measuring 7vdc reference to chassis ground on any lamp, that means the current is going through something else to get there. I think you have both connectors wired wrong. It looks like the current on the low beam circuit is going through both high and low beam filaments in series to ground, making them too dim. That would explain the 7v at one terminal and the partially lit high beam indicator. Then when you put the switch to high beams the low beam filaments alone get the current. It seems that all 3 wires are going to the wrong pins on each lamp. Right now, the low beam filament terminals are going to ground; the high beam filament terminals are going to the low beam circuit; and the ground/common terminals on the lamps are going to the high beam circuit.

Here is a very crude sketch

 

I wired everything up as per the pics I found of the connector online. Tomorrow ill unpin the connector and start trying different positions

Thanks for the help

Edit....I'm assuming both connectors should have the exact same wire/pin locations correct?

 

Yes, they are the same.
Speaking about the online diagrams, I tried finding some good ones a few months ago and pretty much failed.

 

Well you were 100% right! Ground needed to be switched across, and low beam wire switched. It's so nice to have lights.


Thanks again for your help