Help!! No Headlights!!

[Chad A]

Started her up in the driveway one morning to go on a short trip, 30 miles, for a softball tournament. Turned on the lights and pulled out of the driveway. As I was turning onto the street the headlights go out. ONLY THE HEADLIGHT BULBS, all other lights including the markers and “halo eyes” are on. Try the fog lights to get me by, no fog lights. Try the brights, they work. Getting light enough at this point I don’t need the lights now. Go on my way. 
 

Get home, pull out the schematic and can’t tell a dang thing about this system. Way to complicated in the drawings. Study for an hour and head out to coach. Pull on the switch and the headlights work. Very confused. Random outage?

 

Fast forward to last night. No headlights, no fog lights, just the brights. Had to leave to get to my destination at 6:30 so drove until 11:00 with my brights on. Must not be that bright as I only got flashed once. 
 

So, where do I start? Check to see if I am getting juice to the headlights even though all other lights in the housing are working? Check the switch? Any and all ideas helpful and appreciated. 
 

Thank you

[jacwjames]

Do you have a smart wheel???  

I seldom use the headlight pull switch, I do use the smart wheel.  When I get ready to leave I check the wiper function and this will also turn the headlights on. 

 

[Chad A]

I believe I have the smart wheel. I have windshield wipers, cruise control, when I push on the light button on the steering wheel the halo lights turn off and on. 

[jacwjames]

If you lights work with the smartwheel that may indicate that your headlight switch may be the intermittent problem either with the switch or a ground wire. 

On mine all the wires are connected via a wiring harness.  You might make sure it is firmly connected. 

I had to replace my switch last year, the portion that controls the lights on all the switch had burnt in two.  I ordered one from Amazon, but they are usually stocked at an autoparts store.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000C9SAJC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Mocephus]

When my low beams stopped working I found a burnt connector on the Smart Wheel controller (FRB), at the J12 connection. That’s known to be an issue.

After repairing that, they went out again a year later. This time it was a loose headlight wire connection inside the FRB on the left wall inside one of the big round plugs.

Good luck!

 

[Tom Wallis]

I'm not familiar with the Smart Wheel and it's wiring but some of the suggestion on checking it are probably good. If you don't find it there however, don't overlook the dimmer switch. Sometimes fog lights are wired to only work on low beam so if you loose low beam and fog lights the dimmer is another place to look.

[mschfmkrs1]

It’s either the switch itself or connection on the circuit board that controls the L& R headlights, located in the 12v power supply bay in front of the left front tire. Connections on that circuit board get loose, I just went through this scenario in March. Good luck!

Ed Hildebrand 

2004 Monaco Signature 45’ Castle III

 

 

 

[Chad A]

Update:

 

Drove home last night and the headlights worked. Have no idea why as I did nothing different than turn them on and hope they would work. 
 

They would flicker every now and then, sometimes after hitting a bump and sometimes not. 
 

Sounds like I have a loose connection somewhere that I will need to try and track down. I will start looking in the places you have suggested. Won’t be able to get to it until I find some time with work being busy. I don’t have any plans to take her out for a while so hopefully I can find it. 
 

Thanks

[jacwjames]

Quote

 

Good practice to go through all the grounds occasionally.   I went through all the grounding bars on my firewall last year along with the ones in my rear passenger side electrical bay. 

Not too long ago a Dynasty owner had a bunch of gremlins on a new to him coach.  Most were solved by going through all the ground connections. 

[ktloah]

My 04 Dynasty lost its headlights and it was the J12 connector on the smart wheel controller. It's located in the panel below the drivers side. I replaced the connector with a 30 Amp relay bypassing the connector.