Headlights *POOF*

[Enigma]

I havn't seen anyone post this one before, so I thought I'd give ya'll a chuckle.

Hop in the car, driving down the road, and "plink" all the lights go out. Headlights, interior lights, dash lights, radio and later on I find out, also the power door locks. Plus, a nice little stream of smoke from under the hood where the starter relay is located. Everything else works fine, signal lights, brake lights, power windows, engine. So, I park the car back at work, call my buddy to give me a lift home, and hop into the emergency backup vehicle. A friday night salvaged.
But, there goes my weekend. Gotta love tracing down wiring gremlins.

[Mr. Land Yacht]

something similar happened to me at nite...
headlights were working but everything else wasn't.
got pulled over and the cop told me that I had no tail lights....he said it was ok, just drive with my hazards on so people can see me.
I forget what it was, I think it was a blown fuse/relay...I can't remember.

[88grandmarq]

My guess would be you toasted the headlight switch along with the brown wire, which is normal for these cars. time to get out the EVTM and do some searching.

[87_crown_vic]

the white 1990 CV i had had auto headlights. i was doing 65mph down the road at 110:30 pm or so before i got rid of the car. all the lights went out on me. the hwy was not lit by streetlights or anything since it is a country hwy. imagine something like that happening. luckily for me the sensor for the auto lights went bad so i just had to pull the headlight switch to the on position.

[Enigma]

A little head scratching on this one, but success in the end.
Ended up being the wiring harness rubbing through on the rear drivers side engine hoist loop. Arced out a nice little chunk of the black orange power feed wire to the lights, door locks, and radio and toasted it's fuse link. Put a nice blob of solder on the wire, replaced the fuse link, re-routed the wiring a little higher, and I am back in business.!

[murphmobile2]

something similar happened to me at nite...
headlights were working but everything else wasn't.
got pulled over and the cop told me that I had no tail lights....he said it was ok, just drive with my hazards on so people can see me.
I forget what it was, I think it was a blown fuse/relay...I can't remember.

I had something like that happen with the '84 once, lol. Had it warming up early one morning, and I had the lights on, but when I got out I noticed the only lights that were on were my headlights, lol. A few minutes later the other ones turned on, lol.

That was wierd...

[Archangel]

I have a relayed harness for my headlights that is hooked uo directly to the battery, even if the headlight switch decides to quite all I need is a short piece of wire to jump one of the relays and my headlights will be back online

[saiyaneye]

Fusible links smoke, and there a couple by the solenoid.

edit---
Okay i see you fixed prob.

[gadget73]

A little head scratching on this one, but success in the end.
Ended up being the wiring harness rubbing through on the rear drivers side engine hoist loop. Arced out a nice little chunk of the black orange power feed wire to the lights, door locks, and radio and toasted it's fuse link. Put a nice blob of solder on the wire, replaced the fuse link, re-routed the wiring a little higher, and I am back in business.!

Had similar happen to me, but it was the thermal blower lockout wiring for the heater blower. It shorted and took out the fuse link that powers the actual ignition switch, and by extension all the key switched stuff in the fuse box. Did I mention the ignition switch powers the IGNITION? Yeah, it shit on me when I was in Chicago. Its fun dead-sticking a 4400 lb car down the road. Luckily I wasn't in the middle of the city. I was on the outskirts leaving a gas station when it died. Rigged it with a piece of speaker wire and yanked the blower fuse so it wouldn't burn anything up, and continued on my way.