Headlight, high beam question

[Intheshop]

I have a 71 T that I installed H4s on recently and tonight I noticed that the temporary high beam I activate by pulling the turn signal stalk no longer operates. The highbeams still work when I push the turn signal stalk forward as before, but they no longer turn on when I pull it. This is true whether I have the headlights on or not -- no high beams when I pull the stalk. Is this related to the H4s? Or should I just assume that after 35 years the stalk has gone bad? Thanks for any advice,
SCOTT

[pu911rsr]

Porsche did not use relays so these switches tend to go bad, they are also mechanically fragile. What wattage bulbs are you using with your H4's.
Phil

[adam912]

I just got into this area on my '66 this weekend. In my case, a 40 year-old solder joint broke loose, happened to be the one in the center of the push-pull High/Low beam column switch, so no headlights at all! Fun to discover THAT at 8:30 at night! An afternoon's work with the soldering iron fixed it.

It took me a few hours to diagnose mine, having only a black-and-white copy of the wiring diagram for the '66. If you are handy with reading the wiring diagram and using a voltmeter, you might do some detective work yourself. The problem could be a wire that fell off somewhere in the circuit between the ignition switch and the column switch. There is a separate wire that feeds the intermittent side of the switch (so that you can flash without the headlights being on). Worst case, it might be a broken leaf on the column switch, in which case you'll need a new (expensive)switch. Try troubleshooting it first, you might be lucky and need just a wire repair.

Adam912.out.

[Intheshop]

Thanks for the response, i will start tracing the wires first to see if a connection has been broken. The stalk feels just the same as before, so hopefully the switch itself is not broken. Something to do this weekend.
SCOTT