38 Headlight wiring

[FROST1967]

I have replaced the complete wiring harness on a 38 cadillac and I cannot figure out why everything seems to work fine except for the headlights, any help on this would be appreciated
Thanks

[Steve Passmore]

Was that an off the shelf harness? one you made yourself? or one that someone else made? With the old system of City, Drive, and Pass, its imperative where the wires attach to the switch.  If its wired in the more convectional way, ie, Dip and Main beam you have to do some investigative work on the switch to find the terminals live at each switch position.

[harvey b]

Hi There,on these cars it is very important to have the foot dimmer switch wired correct,they will still work if wired wrong,you will get 1 light on and hi-low beams will be messed up,you need to check the switch for proper placement of the wires,on my 37 i had a similar problem,it was the dimmer that was wired wrong.HTH Harvey

Harvey Bowness
Frenchfort PEI

[FROST1967]

it is an off the shelf factory harness and according to the diagram everything is wired correct, but still no lights, is the blocks on the fenderwells that the wires for the headlights go to supposed to work as a ground for the headlights? the lights in the dash never change from city,but it does go off when i hit the dimmer switch

[harvey b]

Hi There,the blocks on the fenderwells are not grounded,they are just a place for the wires to hook together,you may need to run a better ground from the headlight buckets to the frame,if your headlight buckets are painted recently,it may interfere with your ground.Have you checked your dash bulbs to see if they are good?,you can also test with a test light to see if you have power going to the wires too.sometimes the little things are what is wrong,not a big thing, HTH Harvey

Harvey Bowness
Frenchfort PEI

[FROST1967]

yes the car has been recently painted and you are probably right that I just have a ground problem,is the bucket themselves the only ground for the light
Sorry for all the questions,this is the 1st car i have messed with older than 1960
thanks for all the help

[harvey b]

Hi There,yes the bucket is supposed to be self grounding?,on my car i soldered a wire to the back of the reflector pod for a good ground,i then ran it out the housing to the side of the rad shell,my car is a 37,same idea just a different design of the light housings,try that and see if it helps,also check for power at your bulb sockets, i am assuming you are still using the "old reflector style lights".I recently put a harness from YNZ in mine and had to do some minor tweaking to get all the lights to work too. Good Luck.  Harvey

Harvey Bowness
Frenchfort PEI