1993 Sidekick 4-door 16V

Ok, so yesterday i submerged the front of my kick pretty well and got water in the headlight housings, which in turn blew both bulbs.

So i got home, drained them out, and put in new bulbs.  Now the driver's side is at regular brightness and the pass. side is really dim.  This happened to me when i got the truck, but i can't remember what i did to it to fix it.

The fuses are fine, and i tried switching them around anyway.  I haven't tried switching the bulbs, but the "dim" one looks to be perfect.

The last time this happened, i thought it was just a fuse.  It seems that the light on the pass side draws power from the driver's side because if i put on the brights, then the pass side goes dim to almost off.

I know this is something simple, but i can't remember and now that daylight savings has finished, it's dark here at 5-5:30pm (driving home time).

i hope someone know what the problem is , same thing happened to me.and i know the bulbs are good  changed them  back and forth and to a different set. same problem.

I luv it ... "I just happened to get my lifted 4dr submerged" ...  

I dunno what to say about the "brightness" other than ... you sure it's clean? Is is full of condensation from when you "cleaned" it?

The bulb I believe is directional (aka there is an up and a down side, but not certain).

How did you clean the crap outta the inside too I've only had luck using lotsa soapy water (sometimes with 1/4" cubes of sponge thrown in) ... agitate it by hand for what seems like forever, rinse it about 100 times, and then use a hair dryer to FINALLY get the condensation out ...

Because i was so beat when i got home, cleaning it consisted of pulling them off, letting the water out, then putting them back in.  I'm going to be replacing these bad boys soon, but before then i'll seal em up with some silicone, but didn't have time last night to do all that, so i'll actually clean them later on.

The light is definitely just not getting proper power because when i hit the high beams, it doesn't get any brighter, it gets more dull.

I'm gunna go f*** with it some more.  Work is slow today.


EDIT!!!

Ok, so i'm back with some testing results, but still got the same problem.

There are 2 headlight fuses in the panel.  If i pull the left one, both lights work the same.
If i pull the right one and leave the left one, none of the lights work. 

So, on to the bulbs.  I unplugged them from the housings and set them next to it so i could see the brightness without the obstruction of the heavy condensation.

Pull the pass. side bulb and the driver's still works normally. 

Pull the driver's side bulb with pass side bulb in, and it doesn't work at all.

SO THEN, 1 circuit isn't getting complete to send full power thru to the pass. side bulb for some reason.  The wires haven't been touched, and the fuses never even blew when the bulbs blew up, so i don't think any wiring had a chance to fry or anything, but what the hell could this be?

The good thing is that even though 1 bulb is pretty dull, it still passes in my books as a headlight, so i don't think those ass-grabbing cops will give me any grief...

once, a long time ago, I owned a honda accord that had the same problem and it ended up being a ground issue.  I would check the wiring and grounding screw on that side of the light wiring harness.  and check the ground in the socket that the bulb plugs into, see if there is any build up of minerals from the slight dunking... just my thoughts,  and have you tried swapping the two bulbs to see if maybe the bulb itself isn't bad?

Yeah, i tried swapping the bulbs to no avail.

I've been searching google (for what it's worth) and most people are saying that a loose ground causes the problem.  The only problem with that is that the 3 wires from the plug disappear into the harness on both sides.  Anyone know where to located the ground points/screws?

If you check your lights (wires) with a meter
you will find they get 12V all the time, the thing
that makes them work is the switch, it makes a
ground, I don't know where the ground is but
I know when I had a problem, it was ground,
make a right turn witht he signal and the wipers
turn on, the ground for that was by the washer
bottle, just a bunch  of wires with an Oring connector
on the end screwed down to the body, also check
your body ground from the battery, I bet you solve it

did you clean out the plug that goes onto the bulb? try and pull the grommets out of the plug to make sure the connections inside are ok and not corroded.

derek

I don't know how it happened, but it did...

It was a bad bulb.  I found my spare in my workshop, plugged it in, and everything was fine.  Put the bad bulb on the drivers side and it did the same thing.

The little elements in there looked perfect, but i think somewhere down where the connection is in the bulb  under the plastic, something wasn't connected correctly.

For future reference, the "middle" wire of the plug in is the ground.