Alternating high-beams after H4 upgrade

[Inf]

Until today I was running some Sylvania sealed beam headlights that the PO had installed in the car - nothing special. A few years ago (maybe 3?) I installed Dave's headlight harness, intending to upgrade to H4s eventually.

I finally got around to ordering a set (the Autopal set MSA is selling now), and when I installed them, my high beams no longer behave properly.

The driver's side headlight correctly switches between low and high in sync with the little blue indicator light in the speedo, but the passenger side headlight does the opposite.

I.e.:

High-beam indicator ON -> Driver's side high, Passenger side low

High-beam indicator OFF -> Driver's side low, Passenger side high

I should note that the setup worked flawlessly before upgrading headlights.

Any ideas? Hoping Dave will chime in here.

P.S. I installed a 60A 280ZX alternator using Dave's adapter plug tonight also, seems to be working great so far. My blower motor seems to run at constant speed between idle and revving now.

[SteveJ]

Well, I would say that somehow you got the wires crossed between the low beam and high beam circuits on the passenger side. Take another look at the wires coming off the relays and going out to the passenger side.

[Inf]

I thought that too at first, but the only wiring I disconnected was the plug at the back of each bulb when I swapped them out. The plug also goes on only one way, would have been nice if I could have just flipped it over for an easy fix :/

[Inf]

Problem solved.

The problem: some dumba$$ PO apparently disconnected the terminals inside the headlight bucket socket and got the RW and RB wires interchanged. It's been like that for more than 7 years at least. The crappy sealed beam lights I was running were running incorrectly, but I guess the difference in brightness/pattern between high and low beam was small enough it never bothered me.

The new H4 beams look pretty sweet on the wall of my garage, can't wait to try them out tonight (assuming it doesn't rain!).

[SteveJ]

I'm glad you found the solution.

I work with controls wiring, and I can tell you that I have seen plenty of instances of equipment that tested just fine even though there was a wiring error. Of course, the wiring errors ALWAYS make themselves known when you're starting up the equipment.