Why are my headlights doing this?!

**silverWS6** · 09-21-2011, 06:35 PM

Is it cause the left low beam is going out?

Low's:

High's:

**Firebirdformula99** · 09-21-2011, 07:29 PM

Mine did that it was the headlight motor connection/motor went bad and i had a bad bulb as well

**Nowhereman** · 09-21-2011, 09:45 PM

Yup when I had a headlight motor crap out, that happened exactly.
It's nice to know GM built Artificial Intelligence into every Pontiac Bird...LOL

**fbodyNATION** · 09-22-2011, 06:28 AM

I actually saw this same problem on a guys MRM T/A last night he seems to be living with the problem instead of correcting it LoL!

**silverWS6** · 09-22-2011, 06:34 PM

Originally Posted by Firebirdformula99

Mine did that it was the headlight motor connection/motor went bad and i had a bad bulb as well

Originally Posted by Nowhereman

Yup when I had a headlight motor crap out, that happened exactly.
It's nice to know GM built Artificial Intelligence into every Pontiac Bird...LOL

My headlight motors work fine though, I just replaced the gear on the driver side one so I might've not put the connection on right. I'll check that and probably buy a low beam light too and throw that on, see if it fixes the issue

**pajeff02** · 09-23-2011, 03:14 AM

Looks like a ground or connection issue. Knock on wood, I have not had a problem with the lights or motors on our car, so haven't had to mess with them.

**silverWS6** · 09-23-2011, 01:21 PM

My Trans Am is like my fiance.... Smarter than me!

The connection was a little bit off on the driver side, turns out I didn't connect it right... FML. All is good now!

I was already thinking about just doing HID's

**4get gto** · 09-26-2011, 03:55 PM

My car has less than 20K on it and this is this shit I will have to look toward to.....
Hope my car does better.

One Question...... 6 different replys.......

Not complaining about the replys...... Just the car.........
Should'nt be..........

**Ant71130** · 09-29-2011, 05:03 AM

Theres always going to be more than one possibility for most issues. They were all centered around the same thing. Don't fret :P. You bought the car for looks and the ls1, not the headlamp design.

**Too Fast** · 09-30-2011, 02:27 AM

Originally Posted by 4get gto

My car has less than 20K on it and this is this shit I will have to look toward to.....
Hope my car does better.

One Question...... 6 different replys.......

Not complaining about the replys...... Just the car.........

Should'nt be..........

Dude. Relax. A lot of replys because there are a lot of people who don't understand electrical circuits. The OP had a bad ground on the LF headlight, and the electricity was doing it's best to find a ground. That's why 3 lights were on dim with the low beams. Others who fixed the problem by fixing the headlight door motors inadvertently repaired the ground circuit (bad headlight connection), which 90% of the time is the problem. Also, our cars are 11 years old now, so some problems will happen. I love my car, it won't ever be for sale. I like your avatar, BTW. I had a '67 400 4 speed for 11 years.

**4get gto** · 09-30-2011, 02:48 PM

Originally Posted by Too Fast

Got you buddy......

I like your avatar, BTW. I had a '67 400 4 speed for 11 years.

BTW. I "had" a 67 ,326 auto......68 350 4speed at one time...

Nice cars.

**CrazyLS1** · 12-03-2011, 01:10 PM

And if you were like me and found all connectors bad I found this to resolve my issue.

Well after playing with it for months and reading forum after forum I found a temp to perm fix. This is a ground issue but if you were like me all your connections looked good and grounds were find but still had the issue i have a solution.

On the side that is dim, take the outer headlight bulb connector off and take about a foot of wire and plug it into the front side of the connector for the black wire and plug it back onto the bulb. Take the other end of the cable and connect it to where the other ground is on the radiator support. Only the 2 outside bulbs should be working now.

Check your brights and all 4 should be working now. Hope this helps someone else that had this same issue.

**Nowhereman** · 12-03-2011, 01:42 PM

All these little weird problems are all part of the F-body mystique.
You learn to deal with em / fix and at that point, you become part of that car.
You'll find yourself tweeking this and that from time to time and then actually seeing your work produce a better car.
Pride and the uniqueness of owning one of the pieces of americana motordome.
It's all cool.

**az gt eater** · 12-03-2011, 07:37 PM

I had the saem problem when I fixed my headlight motors. I just unplugged and replugged in the wiring harness for the lights a couple of times, did the trick. No problems since.

**KMdef9** · 12-04-2011, 10:47 AM

Originally Posted by silverWS.6

My Trans Am is like my fiance.... Smarter than me!

The connection was a little bit off on the driver side, turns out I didn't connect it right... FML. All is good now!

I was already thinking about just doing HID's

LOL, it would have been a good way to talk her into it.

At least that's what I try to do nowadays.... with no results...

**LgndKller20073** · 12-10-2011, 02:12 AM

I actually have the opposite problem. My high beams work fine, but my low beam on the passenger side doesn't work. It works when I flip the lights up, but once the motor turns off, the light goes off. My side marker doesn't light up either. The light also was shattered when I went to replace it.

Me and this light have gone blow for blow, with the light winning. I have 3 stitches in my knuckle as I'm typing this from catching it on the broken light. I haven't checked the connections yet at the ground to see if they're bad. I assume that's the problem though. I think the bulb catches a ground from the motor(which is why it's on when it's flipping up) and then shuts off because the ground is gone. But I can't figure out why the side marker would be off too, unless the bulb just burnt out.