MizKJG

I've tried searching every forum I could find and I've seen some posts that were similar but still haven't found a solution.

I have a '99 EX with 275,000 miles and one day my passenger side headlight went out while driving. When I stopped I popped the hood and found that the stock connector was a little loose. I pushed it back in and everything was fine for a few days. After a little while, the connector got loose and came off again so I decided that just pushing the connector back on every few days would get really old so I decided to grab a pair of pliers and pinch the leads down a bit to make a more solid connection. While I was doing so I noticed that the connector was a little burned, not enough to damage anything but enough to make me want to replace them (they're 20 years old and have seen a lot of road after all).

I go to O'Reilly's and pick up some cheap, $3 a piece connectors, and set out to change them. I wanted as much space to work as possible so I took my front bumper off and took both headlight assemblies out. Then I:

• Disconnected the negative terminal on my battery
• Cut the Black, Red/White, and Red/Blue wires for the passenger headlight connector
• Cut the Black, Red/Yellow, and Red/Green for the driver headlight connector
• Used three butt-connectors for each headlight to splice on the new connectors. (I don't have a way to solder the wires.)

I have the factory service manual (you can download it for free if you search for '96-'00 Civic Factory Service Manual on Google. Some very nice person uploaded it to Google Docs.) In the manual it has the headlight diagram and it shows me which wires go to which beam, but it doesn't say where the lead is supposed to connect on the bulb, so I guessed. Turns out, I wired the passenger light correctly but had the high and low beams swapped on the driver's side. When my beam selector was on Low, the passenger headlight was on low, but the driver's side was on high and vice versa when the selector was clicked to High. I also noticed for the first time since I've had this car, about 9 months, the high beam indicator light came on when I turned the headlights on and it stayed on in both Low and High positions. I figured it was because I had the wires on the driver's headlight swapped.

I didn't have enough butt-connectors to cut the two wires and resplice so I decided to try and take the leads out of the plastic housing and swap them around. In doing so (and because they're so damn cheap) I broke the little piece that holds them in the housing. I went back to O'Reilly's and bought the good connectors and some more butt-connectors and changed the driver's side connector.

By this time it was getting dark and I didn't really feel like changing the passenger side connector to the new one so I decided to leave it for now (it was working and we had to leave). While driving, I noticed my high beam indicator light was dim but on even in the low beam setting and my lights were super dim. I switched the lights to high beams and all appeared normal (the brightness of the high beams and the high beam indicator brightness). When I switched back to low beams the lights appeared to be dim and then got a little dimmer (think powering down) and the dim high beam indicator stayed on.

Some of the other forum's similar issues stated that the Daytime Run Lights my be a factor (as far as I know my car doesn't have them) and fuses/relays may need to be replaced. I did squirt some dielectric grease in the cheap connectors and plugged them in to the bulbs. I've seen a lot of conflicting things about dielectric grease so I'm not sure if that mattered at all. I've cleaned as much of the grease off as possible and that didn't seem to do anything helpful so I'm not sure about that.

I guess my questions are what could've happened between cutting and splicing the wires to new connectors could've cause the lights to be all screwy? Could I have messed a relay up somehow? I visually checked all the fuses associated with the headlights and they're all fine, should I replace them anyway? Could I have messed up the new bulbs (they were put in a week ago or so)?

I do a lot of driving early in the morning when it's dark so I need my regular powered low beams to function properly as soon as possible.

Thanks in advance for making it this far and for any help!

*Solved

So after two days worth of headaches, I believe I've solved the problem. I broke open the stock connector and saw that I've had my ground wire in the wrong spot this whole time. I've tried swapping the high and low beam wires around this whole time while falsely thinking the ground wire is on the top pin of the bulb.

Attached is a picture showing the different wires to where they plug into the connector. The low beam is on the top pin, the ground is on the driver's side pin, and the high beam is on the passenger side pin. Maybe I overlooked it, but why that last sentence wasn't anywhere in the factory service manual I have no idea... it showed which wires were to which beam, but it didn't show a diagram of the connector to show which wire goes to which pin on the bulb.

I assume that peanut buttery looking substance is 20 year old dielectric grease.