Headlight Doors

[Gerald]

I swapped out my headlight to LED and the headlight doors stopped closing. This may be a coincident but the bottom line is that my doors have stopped closing. Has anyone had any experience with this issue>

[DAVES89]

Yes you need to put in an after market relay harness. I use one for both the LED [Truck lite which is on my Black winter Reatta] and the Silver Stars [which are on my summer driver Red Reatta].

[Ronnie]

The problem is the LED lights don't have enough resistance to activate the Headlight Door Module properly.  Dave's solution to your problem is the best because it will take the load off the headlight switch as well as making the doors work again. There is another solution but it requires making a modification to the wiring going to the Headlight Door Module.  This modification was done by another forum member who had the same problem after installing LED lights  I looked at the wiring diagram in the FSM and it looks like it should work. I have never done it myself.

 

Quote

See page 8A-102-0 in the '89 FSM

 

On the Headlight Control Module connector C1 terminal C I cut the wire and capped the wire leading away from the HCM connector. I connected a 16ga wire to the severed wire C coming out of the plug and I ran that wire to a good ground.

   Up and Down then functioned correctly and the raise/lower switch also works correctly. You can do this fix regardless of what type of headlamp you are using and everything should work OK. 

 

 

[DAVES89]

Easier to put the relay harness in. Always can be removed with no change to any wiring. If anything electrical goes wrong the last thing you want to deal with is "did what I change with the wiring the cause of this new issue"? I have done a number of "upgrades" to my car, but the one thing I have never done is modify any wiring. These cars are very electronics dependent and that is something to consider.

 I have collectively 500,000 [almost 300,000 by me] miles on my two daily driver Reattas, and other then a headlight relay issue [bad plug not bad relay] I have never had an electrical issue. Never even replaced a "silver box" [BCM, ECM, etc]. Light bulbs, fuses, relays yes, but nothing else.

 I have to replace my first Cam Magnet [on the 'vert] and yesterday changed a Harmonic Balancer on a Reatta I haven't started driving yet. The 'vert has 125,000 miles on it the other car not sure.

Edited September 27, 2019 by DAVES89

[Gerald]

Thanks everyone. Now I know what wrong and have options to correct.