Gday

I was driving home a couple of nights back, doin about 80clicks on the way home on a windy road, and suddenly im caught in the black. Couldnt see a thing, headlights, parks, dash, tail lights, the lot, all gone at once. Lucky the high beams still come on when you pull the stick. Got home safe, minus one pair of boxers...

Anyway, Ive heard this happens to a few of the X series falcons and just wondering what causes it. The lights still havent come back on yet so Im thinking a fuse has gone somewhere but I checked the panel and theyre all good. Does anyone have a list of what fuses do what in the XB? and where the fuse/circuit breaker to the lights should be?

Just need a bit of a heads up before I end up pulling it all to bits and rewiring the whole lot. After I find out what causes it I'll put in an over-ride switch to get me out of trouble if it happens again.

Thanks.

hey mac, i dont know if the xb has this on it, the ea and the ef has a thermal type circuit braker in it which trips out if there is some sort of overload on the headlight circuit. i had a problem with mine cutting out but the parkers would stay on, it was that circuit breaker which had a bad connection heating it up and cutting the whole lot out. its just a thought mate, by the way its about the size of a AA battery bit shorter. good luck mate
sambo

yeah there is a circuit breaker in there somewhere. not too sure where it is on the older falcons. the e series it is near the rest of the relays under/around the coolant bottle.
Ford p/n XC 11646 A (i think)

in the ea its covered with a black shroud at the front drivers side of the car. at the back or the front of the relay block there. the ef it is under the coolant tank.

Check your actual switch, used to bugger up all the time in my zh fairlane and had the same issues with an xb coupe years ago

Yeah I'd check the light switch. I would have to clik my switch on and then just rock it back slightly so the lights would stay on. Its very common for the switches to crap themselves.

yes thay had a b**ch of a swicht in them i replaced about 5 in my old xb years ago

yep, they're both right - firstly, the light switch itself, can get too hot, then the contacts actually get so hot in the switch that they melt the plastic surrounding them and they move slightly, i.e. no longer making contact - you can either replace the switch if you can get one, and maybe face exactly the same dramas, or do what I did - the park circuit is normally still ok so I made up a `temporary' repair (about 5 years ago !!) where the park lite circuit also fires a 12v relay which completes the headlight circuit - takes all the load off the switch so it won't get hot....the only downside is that you don't have a park lite only function anymore, but how often would you actually use this anyway??

Second bit is the circuit breaker. In an XA-XC, it lives right in the middle of the fuse box - looks like you wouldn't be able to remove it but if you undo the actual fuse box you will see on the other side 2 nuts (about 3/8" from memory) these both retain the circuit breaker in the fusebox and also are the electrical connections. I went to the local u-pull-it type yard and pulled 4 of these out of XA-XC's so's I'd have a spare handy if it ever happened again....of course, now that I have all these spares, its never done it again but hey, at least I'm ready....

my 71 cortina had one, the lights would flick on and off after a certian period of time, replaced it and no more probs.

Cool, I'll check the switch itself tomorrow. Is this fuse box supposed to be in the engine bay, because the only fuses ive got are on the kick panel under the steering wheel.

on my XC coupe there is a lil earth wire that connects to the earth lead to the negative terminal on the battery.
It was loose once and the lights went out one night.
Im not sure if the XBs have them but worth a look.

make sure you put relays in the lights like XF's do. This way these problems don't occur

Ok, I pulled the switch out and the main power wire had broken off. Ive resoldered it onto the post, all good so far. After I got home tonight (I had the high beams on all the way) I checked it again and nearly burnt myself on the connection, its a wonder the plastic didnt melt.
The switch is making such a bad contact that only 10v is coming out the other end under full load. Im going to hook up a relay to take the load off the switch, and spray some contact cleaner in the switch or pull it apart if I can.

Thanks for the help