head lamp problems

[wingnutt550]

Hello, I have an 06 Explorer limited and one of my low beeams is out. simple problem? NO. Their is some voltage making it thru to the bulb only 2.5V. long story short All Data's trouble check chart leads to either the wire between the Smart Junction Box "SJB" and the head lamp scocket or the SJB its self. has any one had this problem before? i have been unable to locate the SJB the book says "under dash, left side". At 300.00 and the ford dealer says he has never seen one go out i would like to locate it before I purchase one just to know what it looks like. I have pulled all accory pannels including the gauge cluster and find no boxes, does any one know if the dash it self has to be pulled. ford quoted 2 hrs R & R time to replace which leads me to belive it can be done in one hour. Thats how flat rate usualy works.

any suggestions?

steve

 

[studd469]

not sure if this is the same thing... There is module for the day time running lights on my 97. There was a bad connecting, which caused made my hight beams not work. It is a small black box located under the car, just about the driver side fog light. I went to the scap yard and cut a harness and replaced mine, all is good again. It also caused my ebrake warning light to malfunction. Good luck

 

[c2harvey]

check the fuses......in my 01 taurus the passenger side headlight was extremely dull and it turned out one of the fuses was loose

 

[notonto]

I had a similar problem with my 06 mounty except it was the ps turn signal. The dealer said it was a problem with the sjb. After he called in a wiring guy he eventually diagnosed it as a damaged wire going the hl cluster. It was covered under warranty so no prices were given.

 

[Fordman6996]

I also am having the same problem with my 2008 limited. My driver side headlight won't work in low beam but it will with the high beams on. I replaced the bulb today but it still didn't work. I tried wiggling the wiring and I put some dielectric grease on the connector. Still doesn't work. I'm really hoping it isn't that darn junction box. I'm going to try to find the ground tomorrow and see if its corroded and I'll check to see if there is power going to the head light connector harness. I don't know which pin is for the low beams though. I'm really sick of having to fix these dam things this is my 3rd explorer.. and everyone has been a piece of ****. Its always something.. I'm really loosing my faith in Ford.

 

[wingnutt550]

Better idea????

Well Ford over complicated the hell out of these new ones. When they added the headlamp monitor feature all of the lights have their power supply wires routed thru the "SMART BOX". Not so smart for the consummer but great for the service dpartment at Ford. Mine went out about a week before I had a trip planed from FL. to BUFFALO NY. I had access to an ALLDATA system at a friends grage and looked up the OEM wiring diagram and trouble test procrdure but no time to do te job. As I recall from memory the procedure concists of checking grounds, bulbs and voltage available at the scockets. When no voltage is present at the socket the instructions tell you to check connection at the smart box and if they are good replace the box. Now to access the box the dash will need to come out, it is located on the left side of the steering coloum and held in by only two screws (the box not the dash). I have pulled dashes on 4 or 5 diffrent vehicles over the years and this one isn't any different. A big job for an amature but not overwhelimg if you have done them before. I had no time to do it my self before vacation fell prey to the dealership. The box price was around $300.00+ and flat rate labor as I recall was around 4 hours (2 hours R&R as quoted w/1.5hr ele. diag. time + .5 for nothing), it was a bite out of my wallet but I have worked in the service industry on flatrate and everybodys got to mak a living.

A seasoned line mechanic that has done that paticular vehicle before should have no problems beating the time and if it is his first time as a learning experence may take a little longer. What I got was a rookie at full rate that after the job was done took the extra screws and probably put them in to his spare bolt bin, a squeeky dash appeared 3 months later. The only other quick fix I would try is to route power from the side that is functioning and patch in in to the dark side. I would concider this an emergency roadside fix and didn't want to start a 2000 mile road trip with a patch job.

One concern with rerouting power is that the smart box and light monitering function works by ethier measuring amp draw or current flow to each lamp independently and may not tolerate both bulbs running off one circuit and cause it to fail. The results being the same REPLACE THE SMART BOX. This box has many functions other than light control. One being when I purchased the truck the previous owner didn't have the unlock code for the touch pad entry system. I had posted requests for information location and received several guesses from well meaning folks. I can state for a fact that on my 2006 limited the base code is inside the smart box, not on a sticker on the outside like all the other ford products I have needed to find the code and could not be retrived by other than the dealer. They charge about $50.00 to reterive it and claim "we had to hook it to the computer" my best guess is with the vin number Ford Motor Co. could look it up and give it to you over the phone.