[rhyds]

I spent a pleasant hour or two chasing electrical faults on my old man's new Case International 885 tractor (the finest 1989 could offer!)

First off was the very odd behaviour of the headlamps. With the switch on "dipped" there was a light on in one headlamp, but not the other. When you hit "main beam" both lamps came on, but very weakly. The main beam warning light was also on whenever the lights were on, even if you had dip beam selected.

Turns out the problem was down to a failed headlamp bulb. The old style H4 bulbs used in this machine have both main and dipped beam filaments in the same glass envelope. What had happened was the earth pin on one of the bulbs had failed, meaning the two circuits were cross-feeding. A couple of new bulbs quickly sorted that.

The second issue was the sidelights didn't work. This was down to the fuses not having blown, but being those terrible old style glass ones, and they'd corroded in their holders. A quick clean up had them all working again, except for one dim LED tail lamp, which turned out to be a poor earth connection.

The last problem was much more of a pain. The indicators were flashing as if a bulb was blown, but all 4 indicators worked. The problem is that the LED Tail lamps installed have LED indicators, meaning they don't provide enough load to keep the indicator flasher unit happy. Unfortunately its not a straightforward part to swap (Tractor flashers are different to car ones) so it seems I'll have to stick a resistor in the circuit somewhere to raise the load to keep the flasher happy.