Left headlight dim on Lincoln Continental

scrofff

The driver's side headlight is dim. I got a new bulb and it, too, is dim. I read that this may be caused by a bad ground? Any easy ways to fix this? The wires from the socket go into the harness and I don't see where it's grounded. Any ideas at all appreciated.

Mr_Shiftright

Yeah, bad ground most likely. You'll need some kind of wiring diagram. You can't always count on the black wire being ground, although it usually is. I suppose you could probe the socket with a test light and try all the light switch functions, to see which wire isn't live.

scrofff

Thanks for your quick response. It's a 96 Continental, by the way.

So the ground connection coming out of the socket could be bad, not the ground for the harness? If it was the harness then both lights would be dim? There's about five inches of wire coming from the socket before it goes into a larger harness. Just thinking out loud here. I know very little about cars anymore. My motorhead days are far far behind me

Mr_Shiftright

There could be multiple grounds within the harness, too, but you know, you start with the simplest solution first. It's also possible that the ground wire itself could be corroded internally, meaning too high a resistance. That can be determined by a voltage drop test. If you could think of some clever way to ground that one socket, that would be good.