HID bulb...flickering?

[shagdrum]

So, got done replacing the blower motor control unit under the dash this evening, reconnect the battery and turn the car on to confirm the unit is working. When I do so, the drivers side light turns on but the passenger side light seems to flicker a little before not turning on. Any thoughts on what could be going wrong? Ballast? Bulb? Anything I can do to test it?

The car is a 1996 base Mark that was converted to HID's (bought new from Ford) in January 2005 (original bulbs).

 

[micahs97m8]

check all the wire bundles in the passenger side kick panel. That silver box in there is what controls your lights. If all of your connections are good, it may be the bulbs time. Plug it into the drivers side and see if it works. That will tell you if its a wire or a bulb. If the ballast goes, they both go.

 

[Marcus]

Considering the cost and unpredictability of buying a used bulb, I hate to suggest that's your problem, but it was in my case. Driver's bulb was flickering, so I put a new NOS bulb in and that got rid of it.

Swap the bulbs and if it flickers on the other side, then obviously there's your answer.

Maybe you already know this, but they're kind of tedious to remove and install, as you need to remove the entire headlight housings, a fragile "cup" behind the bulbs, and then remove three tiny screws on each bulb. The tabs on the plastic rectangular cups are fragile and break easily so don't force them. And don't touch the bulb glass under any circumstances. Use some silicone grease or some sort of lubricant on the seals of the cups when you put them back in so they won't get stuck to the headlight housing next time. For that matter, put some on the seals of all the bulbs while the housings are out. The high beams are especially bad about gluing themselves to the housings. I had to use a razor blade to slice under the seals to get them loose.

If the bulb is bad you could always buy a pair of DLFs adapters and go with the much less expensive aftermarket HIDs.

 

[shagdrum]

Thanks for the responses.

I'll probably try to switch the wires and see if that does anything. Hope I don't have to got the adapter route yet (though I know it is inevitable).

Don't know if it would be related, but I did recently have a pack rat in the car that tore through a couple wires near the headlight, taking it out in the process. I killed the pack rat, soldered the wiring back together and got the light working. I was very thorough in looking for and fixing wiring in the engine bay as well as checking for new wire problems when the headlight went out again (short of taking the bumper off). The pack rat was killed and the wiring fixed about 2-3 weeks ago. The headlight has been working since then...until tonight.

 

[shagdrum]

Another symptom?

While driving today, the right turn signal had trouble working. Also, with the lights off (auto dimmer off), the brights were getting a little power (dimmly lit) and when turning the brights on, the HID's were also turned on (consistent with the re-wiring from the write-up followed for install).

Any thoughts?

 

[micahs97m8]

another chewed wire or the "silver box" has gone out.

 

[shagdrum]

Also, turning on the headlights seems to put the engine under a bit of an increased load at idle...

 

[micahs97m8]

definitely sounds like like a wire is chewed and grounding out somewhere.

 

[shagdrum]

$h!t