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WannaRetire's avatar
WannaRetire
Explorer
Apr 07, 2014

Low beams don't work, and side makers flash ?

I have a 2005 Forest River Georgetown, built on a 2004 Ford F450 chassis.

1) After winter storage my low beam headlights don't work. The high beams, side lights and tail lights do work.

I tried wiggling the ignition switch and the headlight switch to no avail.
Any ideas?

2) The second problem may be related to the headlights. The front marker and turn signals act like a bad ground. The front side marker lights will flash in opposite sequence of the front turn signals when using the 4 ways (turn signal bulb ON=side light bulb OFF/ turn signal OFF= side light ON). Of course the side makers should not flash at all
Does anyone know where to find the ground connection for the front turn signals?
  • Fixed it! It was a bad relay on the rear of the engine compartment.
    There are 4 relay sockets, one unused. The bad one was
    either #1 or #4 depending on how the cover is installed where the relay #s are.
  • Wouldn't be the first time one burned out some time ago, and now the other has. Check the easy cheap stuff first. Is there power at the low beam connector?
  • WannaRetire wrote:
    I have a 2005 Forest River Georgetown, built on a 2004 Ford F450 chassis.

    1) After winter storage my low beam headlights don't work. The high beams, side lights and tail lights do work.

    I tried wiggling the ignition switch and the headlight switch to no avail.
    Any ideas?

    2) The second problem may be related to the headlights. The front marker and turn signals act like a bad ground. The front side marker lights will flash in opposite sequence of the front turn signals when using the 4 ways (turn signal bulb ON=side light bulb OFF/ turn signal OFF= side light ON). Of course the side makers should not flash at all
    Does anyone know where to find the ground connection for the front turn signals?


    High beams are working which means there is NO GROUNDING problem for the headlights. The high beam AND low beam are a COMMON GROUND.

    You can trace from the head light socket back the wiring harness a few inches and should find a ground wire which breaks out of the harness and goes directly to sheet metal near EACH head light.

    You have deeper problems.

    The low beams should be fused SEPARATELY so there is TWO low beam fuses (10A rings a bell to me).

    Seems to me the power for the low beams originates from the body control module.

    Turn signal/hi/lo stalk switches go into the body control module..

    So, I think you may have an issue with the body control module getting wet from a leaky windshield perhaps since the body control module should be above the drivers side area of the dash and windshield leakage is a common problem..

    Another common problem is the headlight switch going bad due to over current drawn when folks upgrade the headlights to higher wattage bulbs. But in your case the headlight switch must be OK since you do get high beams.

    On edit..

    Looked at my book which only goes up to 2002.. I have used this book for 2003 but 2004 and up may be different.

    According to my book the path is headlight switch to multi function switch (turn/ hi/lo switch on the steering column) then to battery junction box fuse 21 and 23 10A each (one for each low beam filament).. Note, no relays at all for headlights.

    Not sure when but I do believe newer vehicles go through the body control module.
  • Check for 12V on both sides of the headlights and if present it's a grounding problem and track down the ground wire. Could also be a relay stuck on high beams or a loose low beam wire.

    Side marker flashing may be OK. It's a common scenario for the side markers to flash the opposite of the turn signal lights. Given that type of wiring it should be the same with the em flasher.
  • I agree that it is probably a grounding problem. But I have no idea where to look.

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