Well, my little car has after market dodgy installed HDI lamps. Lovely when they work, and they did when i got the car 6 months ago, but for a while afterwards they worked intermittently and now the problem is kinda permanent.
and it goes like this:
HDI lamps have the one bulb (per lamp) that is always on, rather than two independent filaments for High and low beam, and they use a control box to detect you shifting between high beam and low beam, and simply pull the globe backwards or push it forwards to move its focus position and thus switch between the two beam angles. Simple system once to figure out what the extra wires do. The control box is connected by a bunch of square pins to a flat connector a bit like an edge card, and is a wee bit prone to corrosion but I keep the terminals clean and polished to avoid problems like this (wee bit rainy here sometimes).
Now, though both setting use the same bulb, the lamps works on High but as soon as I switch to low, they drop out. Mighty inconvenient for the cars oncoming or those i drive behind at night, so I am restricting myself to day time driving.
each lamp has a separate ballast, mounted close behind the lamp, with a fat HT lead and control leads to pull the bulb forward or back in a solenoid in the housing. All connectors seem fine, all cables are good, the bulb bloody works, but not in the retracted low beam position.
Any ideas why? I do detect a small hum or buzz from one of the ballasts, which is most likely a replacement as the other one is a different type and a couple of the minor low voltage connectors have been adapted. Is it a control box dying? the engine bay gets a wee bit hot (I first noticed the problem after hard driving and this car is a rotary with minor engine mods but otherwise great nick and low milage).
Because i LIKE the HID lamps. Anyway, I don’t have the original lamps; when I bought the car they were already installed by the previous owner.
I think there might be a problem with the relay and control box, so that the lamp drops out because the voltage getting to the relay when I switch to low beam might be less than 12V. Just bought myself a voltmeter to test this, among other things…
I did not do the conversion, so I don’t have the original bits to go back to. I shall look around for a wrecker with the right bits, as I am now missing the original lampholders of course.
Unfortunately, the control/relay box is the least likely thing to find a replacement for, so it’s impossible to repair without buying a whole new kit.
I agree with you about non-stock being a bit more risky, but then I don’t have a Prius with the same HID issue as stock!
TTT (Tangential-to-topic), but not TOT (Totally-Off-Topic) : Out of idle curiosity, does Okinawa have some special, more-relaxed-than-the-Japanese mainland inspection regime?.
Can’t see why it would, but you’ve said a few things that seem to hint that way.
Interesting car. We don’t seem to have a “green with envy” icon, but perhaps we should commission one especially for you.
Seems to have less punitive road tax regime than the rest of the country. Plus, lots of American servicemen keep the demand for sports cars high here, and there are many imported from the ‘mainland’ when they get sold at auction up there once the cost of registering them every to years gets ridiculous. For example, almost every Subaru legacy here is a B4 (occasional GT wagons). Thousands of servicemen drive 12-17 year old Skylines (GTS and GTR), Supra are common, many many Silvias in full race kit, etc.
Of course, that has its downsides too. Passed a crash scene coming to work today, with a white Skyline with American plates (servicemen get different letter prefix) crumpled into a literal pretzel, nose almost touching tail, and very flat, and the Mazda MPV driven by some poor local that turned into the path of the speeding Skyline was stove in on one side and front… ambulances, police everywhere, most likely a fatality for the Skyline driver. Bugger: that means we’ll have additional safety inspections, briefings, and police patrols right near my house.
