My recently purchased 79 limousine has no headlights. All marker lights, parking lights, tail lights, intrument lights, etc. work. Everything except the headlights and the high beam indicator. I looked in a shop manual for an '83 (all I could get my hands on right now) and it said (1) check dimmer switch. (2) check light switch. I did that. EVen though they checked out, I replaced both with new, just to bve sure I had not tested them wrong. My problem is still with me. I checked the switch again and made sure there is power getting to it/through it.

Where from here??? I'm guessing that the next place to test for juice is at the bulkhead connector on the firewall side. Although the car doesn't have a lot of miles on, it was a funeral car, so I'm sure the lights were on all the time. Is it possible that a connection got overheated at the bulkhead connector, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Any help would be appreciated.
Mark
'79 Fleetwood Limousine (no division)

Take a look at the fusible links down by the starter. Theres one JUST for the headlights. Might have gotten nicked and corroded through or maybe even burned up.

Thank you David. I will check them out tomorrow morning. Mark

Dunno what you used to confirm power at the dimwit switch but if it was a modern meter then it could be seeing power even with an "open" connection somewhere. High impedance meters present almost no current load to the circuit under test. A green connection might deliver 12 volts with almost no current draw but when you try to power a lamp it will not deliver anything.
A test light is much better to check this kind of stuff even if it draws 1/20 of what a headlight lamp will.
IIRC the late 70s Fleetwoods with heavy options used an extra bunch of stuff maybe even including another relay and did not actually send high current through the dimmer switch.

Hey guys--Thanks for your suggestions. Problem was a melted connector between the Guidematic relay and the main wiring to the firewall junction block. I don't know how it got hot. The Guidematic may be messed up. That's OK, as I can figure that out later. I just won't use it for now. It seems like that shouldn't affect the lights when they are used manually, but it did. To be sure there wasn't a short someplace else, I followed all the wires and looked for areas where there could be problems. Couldn't find any. Headlights seem to work just fine and nothing gets warm that I could find. Again, thanks for your help. Mark

Chances are the melted connector is normal for this car. The spade terminal can be replaced with a solder type heavy duty terminal to keep the bugs away.