Hello all,
I have a rather weird problem I can’t seem to figure out or fix. The driver side headlight goes out after 10-20 seconds of turning them on. I have checked the wiring and it’s all good, I have also switched the ballasts from the passenger side into the driver side but the problem still only continues on the driver side. I figured it was moisture or something with the ballast itself but now I’m at a road block. I’ve tried 3 different bulbs and the bulbs themselves are good. If I switch the lights to the running lights then back to on the driver side comes on again then turns off after 10-20 seconds. If anyone has any suggestions on what could possibly be the problem I would love to hear.
Thank you for taking the time to read

 

Sounds like you have a wiring issue to the light, most likely a weak ground that overloads and fails. Easiest thing to do it piggyback a good ground into it and see if anything changes.

 

Something else to try-
Get an inexpensive volt meter. Obviously you don't need to test anything when it's working.
When goes out, pop the hood and connect it to your source wire with the grounding side on a metal piece ( like
the radiator support. If it doesn't read (+12V) or higher you know it's on the "source" side.

It's also possible the bulbs are simply not seated correctly/completely. You can invest $2 in 10' of speaker wire at Ace Hardware, connect the hot side straight to the (+POS) battery terminal. If the bulb goes out after 20 seconds, either the bulb is marginal or install. If it stays lit there's something wrong upstream.
Gl!

 

Tangental question: are your fender liners intact? Water could create the issue and/or funk up the grounding as mentioned. Just a thought.

 

nope fender liner is intact, I’m going to try piggie backing the ground and see where that goes 😁

 

Then yep, sounds like a source/ground issue since you did the ballast and bulb swap test.

 

From my understanding there was a grounding wire that came straight from the bulb socket, I removed it just to test and it still turns on then off 20 seconds later. Now I’m really confused, the only other ground I can find for the Ballast is coming straight from the ballast itself

 

Something strange is going on here. If you can, try to eliminate any issues with the headlight assembly wiring by swapping the entire housings (bulb, lens, ballast, etc.) from left to right and see if the problem follows the swap. If so, then there's an issue somewhere upstream as JHC mentioned.

 

Got it, I’ll try that when I get off work tonight and update, the weird this is this morning on my way to work they where both on the whole time. At one point I switched it off and back on just to see and i had to switch it on and off a few times but it remained on after 4-5 attempts which is the weird part for me. But yes I’ll switch ballast, bulb, everything tonight