passenger side headlight burning out

[Anonymous]

Ok, I have replaced the headlight on the passenger side of the car and in a day and a half it has burnt out, the second one.

Also all of my interior lights except the lights for the shifter and the cabin light when you open the door are out.

I'm going to pull the dash apart and see if it's a bulb in there, but wanted some advise prior to "going in". Anything I should be looking out for while in there?

 

[rbohm]

8) sounds like you have a short, or an overload somewhere past the switch. also check the fuses for the interior lights first.

 

[Anonymous]

I am a bit baffled why just the right side light is failing. Since it does not sound like you are melting any wires in between it and the firewall, I would suspect the plug itself. Maybe with vibration it is finding a bad spot in the plug in a matter of days.
Does the other headlight still work when the left burns out? Seems like if you had a large short somewhere, the circuit breaker that is internally contained in the light switch housing would trip. The switch itself could be bad, but that would likely kill the power to both lights. shorting out power to the interior lights may also be an indication of a bad switch.

 

[addo]

Check the grounding on both headlights. If the unburnt one is not properly grounded, it may try to "pull" a ground through the other filament (opposite of whichever is selected); this gets gounded through the dying lamp. Result - one lamp runs both filaments at once and is short-lived.

Adam.

 

[PLP6400]

I had a problem with bulbs burning out on my 65 Comet. It turned out that the voltage regulator was bad, so the alternator put out too much voltage. It has been fine since I changed the regulator to the newer solid state one.