Have a problem with my high beams. I put them on and after a few minutes they turn off I hit the switch and put the low beams back on with no problems. The low beams work fine. I am thinking the problem is with the floor switch. The car is a 71 cutlass convertible.
I haven't done any trouble shooting yet. Not a big problem I hardly ever drive it at night. But would like to see the deer before I hit them because I live out in the country.

 

I'd check the floor switch, it's not the headlight switch because you would not have low beams either.

 

I had this problem years ago. Headlights were a high amperage circuit as designed. Add in high beams on top of low beams & the amperage on clean circuits goes up yet again.

Once they get dirty over 50 years, terminal oxidation can make resistance & heat go up and can start melting things - mainly wires and plastic connector shells.

My conclusion with my problem was that the additional amperage draw from the high beams was overwhelming dirty connectors and/or melted wiring.

When I say clean, what I mean is pop the brass/metal terminals from the plastic shells using a tiny flatblade screwdriver - I use Wiha 2.5. It’s small enough to bend the tangs inside the connectors to remove them & just the right size to bend them back to the right shape to hold them in their shells. Once the terminals are out, I spray them with Deoxit 5 and lightly grind off the oxidation with a dremel using the small steel wire wheel until they’re brass looking again.

If it were me, I’d do a few things:
1) Remove & clean the light switch check for melting on it’s associated plastic shell. If the shell is melted, something got too hot & overwhelmed. You can get a replacement shell from an AuVeCo dealer if you need it.
2) Remove & clean the high beam/low beam switch. Same drill - pop the terminals, clean them and look for a melted previously overheating plastic shell.
3) On both the low beam & high beam, remove each terminal at the headlights and clean them thoroughly to reduce the amperage needed to drive the headlights.
4) Check condition of the wires involved - look for melted insulation or breaks, then solve them, if any.

You can probably get replacement headlight & floor switches in case you suspect they’re compromised internally.

Hope this helps,
Chris

 

I'll add to what Chris posted to say that the headlight switch has a self-resetting circuit breaker. Any resistance in the circuit (including the contacts on the circuit breaker itself) causes increased current draw and heating. Two low beam filaments are fine. Four high beam filaments, drawing current through dirty contacts, can exceed the limit of that circuit breaker. Once the breaker opens things cool off and it self-resets. In addition to ensuring clean contacts, it might be prudent to replace the headlight switch.

 

Thank you. Will give it a try.

 

Not to be an echo chamber, but Joe’s right on point. I’d forgotten about the heat-sensitive circuit breaker.

In action, it functions like a kind of time delay. The lights work for a while on high, overheat, shut off, then you wait until the breaker is cool enough to reset.

Depending on whether you’re home or not when the breaker trips, it feels like a flaky light switch, when what’s really going on is circuit protection.

This drove me nuts for at least 5 years until I replaced the switch and a fire-damaged wiring harness that had been badly repaired by a local shop. It wasn’t til decades later that I hit on cleaning oxidation off the terminals inside the plastic shells to minimize heat and shell melting.

Good luck & good hunting
Chris

 

The switch makes sense. I had to replace a number of years ago because the original went bad. I replaced it with a cheap one because at the time had a kid in college. Thanks. I will clean terminals also.