Hi all,

I was hoping someone might be able to help out with some advice on a headlight problem i've been having with my Libra (Metro 1.4 K-series based) recently...

A few months ago I had been driving the car at night and was stopped for a couple of minutes when suddenly the headlights gave up. Having checked the fuses i could access easily and finding nothing i elected to try and make it the rest of the way home holding the flash control in as the full beams still worked if i did that; well, they did for about 2 mins anyway.

When i got home i located the offending 15A fuse in an auxilluary box located under the dash cover at the far right hand side (i think the previous owner added this following a similar problem as he has bridged the dim/dip resistor with a wire in the fuse box and i have various circuit diagrams to this effect, i'm just not sure which one is his final one!) and replacing this got the headlights going again, until it blew after 30 seconds or so with the engine running again. Following a fair bit of investigation and cleaning the earths etc, i was totally dumbfounded, until i checked the battery and realised that the voltage was steadily climbing past 17v (stopped measuring after that but it was still going). So, having identified the 'fault' as a dodgy voltage regulator, i replaced this (it was pretty well worn anyway) and expected the problem to be solved. The voltage is now fairly steady at around 14.4v, but the bloody fuse still keeps popping!

I've had the car for almost a year now and the lights have worked fine up until now, so the only other thing i can think of is a broken or frayed wire somewhere shorting off something or building up a resistance; but given that its a composite body i cant think of many obvious places for it to do it. It looks like i'm going to have to take some time and wring the ciruit to see if there are any breaks , but i was wondering before i start if anyone has experienced similar problems?

Any ideas???

Cheers,

Mutsy

P.S. If anyone knows where you can get the fastners for the clamshells (the aluminium countersunk ones you take off to open them up) or where you can get an undertray for the libra it'd be great if you point me in the right direction!

Can't help with the lights, but I get the washers from Zoom carts. They come in different coulours and are plastic so you can get them tighter without damaging the GRP. They do wear out pretty fast so get plenty.

http://www.zoomkarts.com/product.asp?productID=258

The cables may have overheated and melted the sleeving, and might be shorting together. I'd check them all around the headlight circuit, to make sure they are ok.

Do the lights only blow the fuse when you are moving, or with them on in the drive way? You could try to fit a smaller fuse and remove one lamp at a time, to see which side of the circuit is causing the problem.

Thanks for the help guys, its much appreciated!

The lights will blow when the car is sitting in the driveway so the suggestion of the sleeving melting and the wires shorting may well explain things. It would make sense given the voltage regulator problem as the wires could well have been damaged by the excess current when it was broken, so now that its fixed i have the same problem as a consequence of it having been broken.

I was hoping to avoid having to check each part of the circuit individually, but it's looking like that's going to be the only way forward... ill post back to let you know how i get on once i've checked it out.

Cheers again!