I have been troubleshooting my headlights. They dont go up or down and I traced it back to a relay. This relay is a multi-use relay, and has 7 or 8 connections. I have been searching parts stores to find one with no luck. The relay is positioned in the battery area, on the radiator support. This is on my 83 Trans Am, so the later Birds I'm not sure will have it. Heres a couple pics:

 

Heres a pic showing the 8 terminals

 

not 100% sure,but Lon at top down solutions may have that.I know he's got them for 85-92 birds.If not I guess you're stuck with junkyards or e-bay.Wish I could help you more,but I'm not too familiar with the earlier third gen birds.Good luck bro.

 

That does not appear to be a GM relay, nor does the wiring appear to be factory. Look at the other relays in the engine compartment. They are all enclosed in a black case with the part number on the outside. The wiring connector plugs into the bottom of the realy to give a weathertight connection.

What you have is a standard octal realy that you can buy at any electronics supply house in you town. Radio Shack does not appear to carry these any more.

A review of the wiring diagrams for an 83 Trans Am show three relays in the headling circuit. One is an isolation relay, between the headlight switch and the heatligh motors. The other two are Headlight Actuator Relays, which should be mounted on the headlight motors. The Acturator relays are available at NAPA and AutoZone to name two. AC Delco also has it, part number D1736A.

Look here for the wiring diagrams. You want the 1983 Body Wiring Daigram, Figure 11.

http://www.autozone.com/az/cds/en_us...rInfoPages.htm

If you just want to replace the relay in the photos, it will have an octal base, 12 VDC coil voltage, the realy contacts are probably rated 10 amperes at 12VDC (the voltage rating may be higher). The only item you will have to figure out is the contact arrangement. You can use an ohm meter, but make sure you identify the coil connections and don't use those pins while trying to figure out the contacts, or if the realy is history, just break the plastic cover off, with out destroying the innards. Since you have a custom, non factory wiring job there, you will need to get a realy that matches the contact arrangement of the one you have for the circuits to work correctly.

I did a little research on line. www.grainger.com may have your relay. You can order on line from them or if they have an office near /in your city you can pick it up. See the attachment for a photo of the realy. Note the contact arrangment and the pin numbering in the attachment. Your realy will have the same pin arrangement, with the coil between pins 2 and 7. The key is between pins 1 and 8 when you look at the relay from the bottom. I am also assuming that you have a DPDT contact arrangment. see the diagram on the realy. Pins 5, 6 and 8 mirror pins 1, 3 and 4.

The Grainger part number is 1A484 and the cost is $17.16 per unit, plus shipping taxes, profit, etc. ( www.grainger.com )

Relay,8 Pins

Relay, Number of Pins 8, Contact Type Double Pole, Double Throw, Contact Current Rating @ 28VDC 10 Amps, Contact Current Rating @ 120VAC 12 Amps, Contact Current Rating @ 240VAC 10 Amps, Coil Voltage Rating 12 VDC, Coil Current Rating 100 Milliamps, HP Rating @ 240VAC 1/2 HP, HP Rating @ 120VAC 1/3 HP, Enclosed, Octal Base Model Relay


Dave

 

I sure hope your wrong about it being a custom wired relay. If this is a custom job, then I would like to find a stock relay and wire it with the correct part.

The motors DO have relays on them too, so the relay I'm working with must be the isolation relay you are talking about.

I can see this job becoming a nightmare quickly, especially if the wiring is not right. The stuff hasnt worked since I got the car so I dont know its history.

 

Ahem, HACK!


Someone probably couldn't locate the proper relay and got creative, kudos to them if it ever worked. You could try replacing the relay and see if they had any idea about what they were doing. It may make things work again.

On the other hand, it looks like little was done to protect the terminals and a good clean-up may fix things temporarily. I would opt to find a car with a factory harness and grab the harness and relay to bring your car back to the way it left the factory. Then if it still doesn't work try to repair or replace the bad part in your new factory-style system.

 

If you just want to get the lights working so you can dirve the car, I would just try replacing the realy with the Grainger part number I posted.


Take a look in the Parts for Sale boards further down the page. Folks are always parting out cars. I don't think it would be to much of a problem to score the isolation realy and an original harness. (I think the same parts were used for several years for this so you may not need to get the parts form you rmodel year. That should help you get what you need.) Note that you will have to confirm where the original realy was located and how much of the wiring was actually hacked.

And as Dr. Pepper noted, you may need to disconnect each wire from the octal socket and clean the socket terminal and the wire terminals to make sure you get good contact for current flow.

Dave

 

thanks fella's, not sure when I'll get to it cause everything else keep failing. starter nose cone busted in half this morning for example. I can drive it the way it is, just leave motors unplugged and up, lights work fine. Just very unnatractive during day when lights are up and not on.

I will probably just get the aftermarket relay and see if I can get the hack job repaired. I'll worry about a correct repair later once more urgent things are finished.