sounds like your switch shorted out and is giving up the ghost

By vanessameyer (4.232.195.96) on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 11:47 pm:

jon
now the hi beams wont come on unless i do the
jiggle/pray thing. I think im going to have to break down and go to Mario the Guatemalan Electrician. Its only hot when the hi beams are on.
everything else is great with Shortie, she is beautiful!
thanks
V

By Jonathan (68.193.6.173) on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 02:02 pm:

Vanessa, check the bulbs to see if they're good. You might have just had both low beams go out. If you do lots of city driving, you might not have noticed one go out with all the other lights around, and the other one finally gave out. The reason the stalk on the column gets so hot is because all the current for the headlights goes through there, there's no relay setup or anything. Does it get hot even when the low beams are on, when the high beams are on, both are on, or all the time?

It shouldn't be getting so hot you can't touch it. You might have a short in there somewhere, but not enough to blow the fuse. If you take the lower cover off the steering column (should be 5 small phillips head screws holding it on), you'll be able to see the connectors for the turn signal stalk. See if that gets hot too when the lights are on. The heat comes from a resistance somewhere in the wire, from a bad connection, corrosion inside the wire, etc. You can also use an ohm meter to see what the resistance is inside the switch. I can e-mail you a wiring diagram of your car if it'll help. It may be just as simple as replacing the stalk, I don't think that is too big of a job. I've replaced wiper switches on the other side of the column before, and that only took a few minutes.

By vanessameyer (4.232.195.86) on Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - 01:45 pm:

hi
i wrote a while back about my dash lights. well those came back, which was good because none of the fuses were bad (thanks for all the fuse advice). now the weird thing is the headlights
(low) dont work, only the highbeams, and my question is:
in the arm that comes out of the steering colum that has the light on/off thing on it, what is getting so damn HOT? i can barely touch it. whats in there ?
so... do you all think its my headlights or the
hot thing in the arm thats making my lights not work?
your friend, the retarded female Honda Lover,
Vanessa