headligt relays

[9000RICHARD]

Good moring one and all, I have searched in the records but cannot find the problem I have on my 96cse.
Most of the time the lights work fine, but occasionaly when I try to put main beam on from dipped nothing happens, if I then switch the lights off just for a second, it then works fine for days, it does the same some times when I try to dip from main beam it will not dip, (sorry if you were the people coming towards me on the m23 this moring) but again switching the lights off for a second cures the problem.

I have seen people talk about the red relay What and where is this and do you think this is my problem.

Thanks for any help

[Mark B]

There's a relay box near the battery which contains several relays including a reddish relay which is twice the size of a normal relay. I think this controls the dip/main/flash function.

[9000RICHARD]

Thanks for the help I borrowed a red unit that seemed to work. new ones are not cheap £41 thats my pocket money spent

[mark e]

There's normally a fairly good s/h supply of them around- eBay, scrappies, local indys. You shouldn't have to pay full price if you don't want to.

[chrisjshaw]

If you want to have a go, I seem to recall that there is a thread on here somewhere describing the fix for one of (the ?) most comon failure modes of the red relay.

It boiled down to the fact that the solder at the base of the actual relay inside the red package cracked and involved reflowing the solder.

Would let you spend your pocket money on something else

HTH.
Chris

[Stephen Brown]

Repair of Red Relay.
Disconnect battery.
Remove Red Relay from dedicated box under the bonnet.
CAREFULLY prise open the relay. The top is held on by plastic wedge-shaped clips all round. It's tedious and frustrating, but it DOES come off in one piece
Check where the connections from the brass relay pegs turn thru 90 degrees and connect with the printed circuit board. Re-check.
Re-solder these connections on the back of the PCB, where all the other soldered joints are. All joints to be re-soldered should be cleaned (scraped) shiny clean before heat application.
Re-fit cover, re-fit relay, connect battery, take car for run and check many times.
It worked for me.
Steve

[teppolaakso]

have to clean my relay to...sometimes working and sometimes not...hope it helps...

[jp11]

Why disconnect battery before removing relay?

[Stephen Brown]

'Cos it's the right thing to do whenever working on ANYTHING to do with electickery on a car.
'Nuff said.

[mark e]

Whilst generally good practice, in this case as you're removing the component from the car and not working on anything else, it is not necessary to disconnect the battery.

[bstan]

I found the best practice was to use a braided solder wick to remove the solder in the cracked solder joint. Then apply new solder to the joint for a better electrical connection. Typically reflowing over old solder is not a good idea (contamination and a weaker joint).

I tried to repair the big red relay, but one of the relay's contacts had pitted badly (I was wondering what that clicking sound was that I heard for a while), so I had to buy a new one.

I also had to repair the solder joints on the smaller orange "Lamp Control relay" that sits right next to the big red one. It's solder joints were cracked even worse than Big Red (and getting the plastic cover off the smaller orange relay is a real bear).

[teppolaakso]

I repaired today my relay...thanks for saving 60e for a new relay