Reply to "blinkers and taillights,,,same circuit/fuse?"

OK, checking with my multimeter, at the plug (2-wire,ground and hot) I get 11 volts from one pin to ground, and I get .17 volts to the other pin to ground.

Ohms-wise, the ground wire gives me 2.94 kilaohms.

The hot wire to ground gives me 5.23 kilaohms.

This is pointing to a bad ground to me, the ground pin on the plug-to-ground should read zero, correct? It also should not read any voltage, and as it sits now it gives off .17 volts.

Roger had designed and built and installed a very cool relay panel, that relieved the ignition switch of all the high-draw items, so they all got switched by heavy duty relays that were more appropriate for the loads.

Trying to trace the wires from the bad headlight up to the relay, it does look like the hot wire gets voltage, but with the lights ON, the ground wire gives .17 volts (it should read zero volts correct?).

With the lights off, both plug pins-to-ground read zero ohms.

So my guess is bad ground, somewhere. If it's the relay, that's a sealed unit, and will require some serious undoing of stuff.

I'm wondering if I can't just cut the ground wire a couple inches back from the plug, and run a ground wire directly to the chassis.

This should give me my already-proven voltage to the hot pin, and a direct ground to the ground pin on the plug. Basically just cut the offending ground wire out of the loop.

What I don't know is if that it is safe to do with the old (now cut) ground wire showing some very low voltage (although that wire now would not be hooked up to anything, just taped over).

I'm going to try jumping the hot wire to one pin on the light, and another wire directly to the chassis to see if I can at least get he light to light up.