automatic headlights

I apologize for bringing up such an old post but I'm having the same problem with my '89 town car. The only difference with my case is that every now and then, my high beams will magically come on every now and then and then not work again usually when I go to start up my car again.

I have gone through most of the steps you have posted and I will tell you my findings.

In step one, I pulled the dimmer knob to both positions. First position only turns on the park lights and second position turns on low beams.

In step seven, headlights would switch to high beams but not stay on. Proceeded to step 9.

In step 9, I placed the dimmer switch to auto, and covered the sensor with something dark. No high beams.

In step 10, it mentions to disconnect the wire to the sensor module and ground it. Where is this located at? This is where I got stuck at.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

Mounted to the dash!

I think this is why I was confused. On my model, I believe the dim sensor is connected to the rear-view mirror.

Hopefully it still uses the same color code for the wires and I will need to figure out how to ground it since it's in a pretty inconvenient spot.

89 is attached at mirror, here are the diagrams I found, not real clear but I sent them via email...here's a sample.

Thanks for your help on this guys.

I have grounded the gray/yellow wire that leads into the sensor amplifier and I stil had no high beams.

I have determined (hopefully I'm right) that it is the dimmer switch and I am going to buy a replacement soon off of AutoZone's site.

I will continue to let you know how all this goes so that it may help others and after I'm through with this, I will surely give you guys a donation for your help.

Glad to help! Let us know how it goes.

Yesterday, I decided to remove the dimmer switch to see if I could do it before I went and paid $60 for a switch.

When I pulled the thing out, I looked inside it and it was absolutely filthy. I decided instead to just disassemble the switch itself and clean the contacts to the low beam/high beam portion of the switch and put it back together.

Tonight, I had the chance to test out the auto dimmer and sure enough, it worked rather well. Both automatic and manual dimmers work nicely now.

Given that the switch is old, I will probably end up replacing it sometime anyway so the same thing doesn't repeat but for now everything seems in proper order.

Once again, thanks for your quick replies and willingness to help me. I have given you a donation as a token of my appreciation.

Hopefully, this info will help someone in the future.

Great!

Just wanted to provide a proper close to this. I don't want anyone to be mislead by my last post. It was NOT the dimmer switch because after a few days, it wasn't working again. I recently got a chance to buy a NOS dimmer sensor (the thing that's located behind the rear view mirror) intended for a 91 town car so I bought it. It was a direct fit for my car and now my headlights work.

So if anyone has this same problem where the headlights work for a while and then stop working for long periods of time, I'd recommend looking at the dimmer sensor first because it was $20 (with shipping) vs. the $50 for the dimmer switch I bought.

Thanks for the update..

Hi!
Could not understand why not working headlight. After reading this forum, found that autolight sensor is missing. 1 year went without beam. Thank you very much for the information.please send me an e-mail scheme in better quality if you can.

Im having problems with my headlights they turn on and off every so often. Sometimes i can drive 6hrs at night and they work fine sometimes after drivin a couple minutes they turn off and on i changed the switch already what else can be the problem