Flickering Headlights

[hpracing10]

2003 silverado 1500 Z71-

 

Lately the headlights have been flickering every once in awhile while driving, and sometimes they will turn off completely while going down the road. The last time this happened, I pulled over and got under the hood and was looking at the fuse box, and the Relay for the Low Beams felt really hot to the touch, hotter than any of the other relays in the fuse box. I also noticed that when I moved the relay back and forth, the headlights would come on, and then if I let go of the relay the lights would go back off. So what I did for a temporary fix was I just placed a quarter in between the Fog light relay and the Headlight relay, slightly wedging the headlight relay over a bit, just enough to keep the lights on.

 

At first, when I felt how warm the Low beam relay was compared to the rest, my first thought was that maybe the relay was going bad. But after moving it around and seeing that the lights would flicker and come back on, my new diagnostics is that there is a poor connection somewhere between the relay and where it plugs into the fuse box.

 

Can anyone provide any insight on this, what can I do to fix it or is there something else I should be looking at other than the relay? Also, is the relay indeed going bad and am I just over looking that? Thanks for any help you guys can provide. This isn't a hu!ge issue, but its annoying and I find headlights to be pretty handy at night!

 

Thanks again

[salden77]

any bad electrical connection will heat up more than normal, maybe you could try using a small flat head screw driver and carefully bend the tabs in a lil were the relay plugs into the under hood fuse block, it def. sounds like the relay is making a poor connection, and if you wiggle the relay and the lights come on it sounds like its a bad connection were it plugs into the fuse block.