My Mk 1 is parked outside my office, and I can see the the headlamps popping up and down on their own.
How can this happen ?
Can anybody offer any advice please ?
Was there white VW beetle with a racing stripe near you MX5 [:D]
Or a bright red car named Christine [6]
Not very helpful so sorry… must be an amusing sight though.
I can only suggest a faulty electrical connection or surge… some kind of current must be going through the headlamp motor. Maybe as simple as a new fuse but I am no expert.
Probably a bad conection in the popup relay
This sounds like a good place to start.
Q: Where is the relay ?
have a look here
Fergy - That’s really useful, thanks for your help.
I’ll have another fiddle tomorrow.
PS - I like your Warhol pic.
have a look here for more Warhol
Still does it…
I’ve changed the Headlamp Relay and the Steering Column Light Switch, but still the lights self pop up.
Can anybody help please ?
I don’t have a MK1, so I’m clutching at straws to some extent, but perhaps it is the switch in the middle of the dash. I would think that you could disconnect this temporarily to see if that sorts it, but it may be a necessery part of the circuit.
If it is not the relay or the column switch, then it is really the only thing left.
That’s seems to be the next place to look 01mx5 -
I took the relay apart today, saw nothing un-toward, cleaned the contacts & put it back on the car - and now the lights stay up all the time. Yesterday they were up & down - up & down like a *** ******* !
Ah - electrics, don’t you love 'em ?
Thanks for your input.
T’would seem that the relay is causing some if not all of your problems. Try running a hot soldering iron over all the solder joints inside the relay, this sort of problem is often caused by a dry joint.
The column switch is also a likely cause, mine flashes the lights when I signal to turn left, a job for the winter…
Have you checked the white multi connector (bolted below the wiper motor) ? If one of the wire connectors breaks it can make the light motors do wierd things .
If you disconnect this switch the lights will pop up next time and then stay up . I left it off by accident once and that was the result.
It still could be a bad connection in the switch area and as is relatively easy to get at would be worth checking.
However if after playing with the relay the fault has changed then the relay must be at fault as well.
When this was happening, were the lights on as well?
Mine has started to do this and the lights are on. Today it drained the battery. the wierd thing is that it seems to only do it in the recent warm weather, when the sun is out!
i have a mk 1 with a similar fault in the first warm weather each year the headlights pop up on thier own but the rest of the car is dead pop the jump leads on and its all back on cannot work out what it is
I’ve had the same weirdness today. Went out to the car and the lights were up and on main beam! Happily the battery was still OK and fired the car up.
I then found that the indicator stalk (on the right, JDM car) which has three settings forwards, mid and back (with back being main beam) seemed to be behaving differently so that in the mid position, the main beam was on as opposed to being when back. I then had to drive around with the stalk set forwards which is then a bit inconvienient to reach for indicating. Left in the mid position, main beam came on and off and the lights came up to show main beam.
I have recently had the problem with the lights flashing when indicating but had assumed i was just clumsy and flipping the stalk back when tipping it up or down.
I’ve been around all day with the roof off and now I feel, coupled with the comments about the warm weather, that somewhere inside a brass strip connection is too hot (the car was like a furnace this morning) and making contact when it normally shouldn’t be. This is backed up in that having left the car roof off outside a friends industrial unit for an hour the problem seemed to go away. I’ve left the car parked with the stalk forwards now to be on the safe side since the roof is back up.
Just the heat playing havoc with a tight tolerance in the switch? It’s 41.5C pitchside at Wembley today if the TV commentary is to be believed.