Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Can anyone help me with the following

I have recently got my 72 Sprint FHC back on the road and MOT'd but it was suffering from a mysterious draining of the battery.... and after a couple of recharges i have discovered what the problem is, although am not entirely sure what the solution is.

It would appear that when the headlights are in the down postion, the lamps are not switching off, and therefore quickly draining the battery. On closer inspection the micro switches on the back of the pop up units are new and seem to operate correctly. When the nearside lamp micro switch is depressed you can hear one of the relays clicking but is not activating the lights. All the earthing seems to be well connected although i haven't traced beyond the firewall.

Any thoughts would be grand.

N

Hi, the nearside (left) micro switch activates the headlight flashing system and the offside (right) micro switch activates the main headlight relay.
I would suggest you check that the right side switch is working correctly.
Have a read through this thread which may help.
elan-f14/headlamp-relay-control-t16985.html

Can you turn the headlights off using the dashboard switch?

Richard

Hi Richard

Yes the switch is off on the dashboard and doesn't make any difference if itis on or off.

N

If the dashboard switch isn't making a difference I would think worth checking the relay wiring - sounds as though the relay is permanently "on"

Richard

Sounds like either the Main or Dipped beam relay is stuck on - try giving them a couple of sharp taps that may fix it. If not find out which one is causing the problem by removing the blue (permanently live) feed wire from each relay in turn and see if the headlights go out.

Thanks all

Was indeed a stick relay..... light tap with end of a screwdriver and sure enough they switched off....

thanks for the help.

Neil