My Mk2 RS2000 has decided to play silly buggers with the headlights for the 3rd or 4th time. Symptoms have been the same the last 3 times:-

Light Switch is on - tail lights and dash lights work

Headlights won't work, but will come on when you pull the 'flash' lever back (noting its operated on from the indicator stalk). This means I have to drive with all 4 lights on and the 'flash' lever pulled back to the driver. Yes its not a user friendly way to drive around at night (so I don'tdrive it)

I've put this down to a dud stalk and installed another one from the spares parts bin. Problem solved (temporily).

Since I've got the same symptoms and the rear lights & dash lights work, I'm thinking there has to be another cause of this - somewhere between the switch and where the headlight wiring is together (e: it affects both sides, not left and not the right or vice versa)

Can anyone steer me in the right direction - if its electrical it could be the most simple of problems - just need to source it.

Hi Dave

If it ends up being the stalk there is a guy selling repo ones on Ebay which I've been curious about the overall quality.

Maybe you could get a set and let me know

I had the same issue once. Ended being something within the indicator was melting due the large amount of current draw in the headlights.

I got around it by putting a relay in with so rather then the stalk powering the lights, it would only turn on the relay, which in turn powered the light.

Good Luck. :P

Switch Burnout is common in Escorts! especially if you put higher spec globes in your headlights. Its a bad design that runs the full current via the light switch. Using a relay will not only save your light switch but will give you approx 1V more across your globe resulting in a brighter output.

Tip. When using relays its a good idea to reverse a diode across the relay coil to protect sensitive electrics in your car from high voltage spikes when the field around the coil colapses.

I was going to mention placing a relay in cct as I seem to remember the same problem on the RS I had 20 years ago! I could not remember if there was or wasn't a realy originally installed so thanks for clarifying.

I've got relays in the wiring - will get the sparky to check they are (a) connected to the headlights & (b) doing their job (I Think I know the answer to that already.

Thanks