Combination Switch Or Headlight Switch Exposed!

OK........I did a little write up over at MT on the Headlight Switch (HLS) that seems to go bad on our 1986-1993 Mazda trucks. The HLS is mounted to the Combination Switch and when it goes bad, most of your running lights won't turn on when you have the headlights on!

So here is the fix for it.......I pulled my whole CBS out but you may be able to just remove the HLS from the CBS and not have to pull the steering wheel this way.



The combination switch (CBS) is the switch that is directly behind the steering wheel on our 86-93 Mazda trucks, and has the turn signal/headlight switch/high & low beam switch lever that sticks out of it on the left side.
Sometimes, something in this area of the switch goes bad and your parking lights, or headlights, or both won't work all of a sudden.
Well, my latest truck had this problem........none of the lights would come on when you rotated the light switch to turn on the parking lamps. The HL would work when they were turned on, but no running lamps nor dash lamps. Luckily I had a spare earlier model switch (this is a 1986 B2000) that had the 4 wire connection as opposed to the 5 wire setup switch.........there are 2 different ones.......and here they are.
You can see there are 2 different headlight switches with these CBS's.........the 4 wire plug one is usually a white back one and the 5 wire one (it's actually a 6 plug connector, but one is not used) is mainly black on it's backside.

The white 4 terminal one.

The black 5 terminal one.


Holding the white one up to compare it with the black one.....



There are 3 screws that mount this HL switch to the combination switch (CBS)......you can see two of them here.....



Switch removed.



And you can see the end of the turn signal arm and how it has 2 different "ends" that toggle the multiple switches on this HL switch.



On the steering wheel side of the CBS you can see this plate that helps secure the turn signal arm to the CBS.......these screws have become loose on a B truck I had years ago and was affecting the lights also......I tightened them down back then and it fixed that one......so make sure they are tight also. There is a spring behind that plate so don't loosen it if all is good with it!