Well I just got the old gal back from the shop after it died at school. They found the fuel relay bad, and the 25 amp fuse bad. Now she runs better then ever. They also did a complete check of the vehicle and found the High beams inop and the reverse lights inop. Oh boy....so I hear there could be a bad relay for the high beams, if so where is it and how can I test it?

Thanks and God bless.
mike

 

its called the 'step relay', and its near the left headlight.

first, do the low beams go out when you switch on the high beams?
when you toggle the dimmer switch, and the low beams go out, does the blue 'high beam' indicator on the dashboard light up?
if you half hold the dimmer stalk, do the high beams come on even if the car is off? (they should).

on that 'step relay', pin 56a goes to the high beams via red wires, and to the dashboard highbeam indicator light via a white-red wire. pin 56b goes to the 'bulb out sensor' via a blue wire and then 2 blue wires from the bulb-out sensor to the two low beams.

the dimmer stalk is a momentary contact to ground that toggles the step relay, this is a brown wire to step relay pin 31b.

 

with the car NOT running, if I turn on the lights the head lights will not come on at all, until I put in and turn the key, car still not running. Now I have low beams, ok. When I pull the stalk toward me I get no hi beams at all and no blue light even for a second. And no the low beams do not go out when I pull the stalk toward me.
I also have no back up lights don't know if that is related or not.
Thanks and God bless.
So what do you think? bad relay? go check out a junk yard? is there a way to jumper wire the relay to see if the problem is the relay?

 

sounds to me like the first thing you should test is the high/low switch on the steering column stalk. this is a normally open momentary contact switch, it has a single brown wire, and when you pull on the stalk, its temporarily connected to ground. the only place this is wired to is pin 31b on the step relay.

 

Ok, how do I test it? I do have a good digital volt meter. Do I take the covers of the coloum? I do have a '92 volvo 240 parked right next to the '87, and I did the exact same test, but when you move the lever toward you from low to high, you can hear a click, and then the high beams come on. No click at all on the '87.

 

find and unplug the stepper relay, its under the hood... note how the two plugs go onto it. put your meter in 'ohms' mode, connect the black lead to a clean chassis/engine ground, and connect the red lead to the brown wire on step relay pin 31b... if your meter has a continuity beeper mode, even better. when you pull the switch in, you should see 0 ohms. if the switch isn't clicking, it should, that sounds like your wiper switch almost certainly is the problem.

i forget how you take that switch/stalk off, but I bet it starts with removing the trim around the steering column.

lesssee.

these are from the 1992 240 US greenbook...

 

Dear Pierce,

Thank you so much for the diagrams! I stopped by a local Volvo shop and they want $148 dollars for a OE switch relay. Dude that is super expensive! junk yard time.
The guy at the shop just suggested I temp switch the switch from the '92 to the '87 and see if that works, if not them most likely it is in the switch in the column.

 

if your car has no cruise control, its this switch
Turn Signal Switch 1976-1993 240 w/o Cruise Control GENUINE VOLVO 114791 1234575 1235339
https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/vol...ontrol-1235339


if it does have Cruise, its this one,
Turn Signal Switch 1990-1993 240 w/Cruise Control GENUINE VOLVO 114789 3523536
https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/vol...40-260-1363819

as I said, I'd test it first with a meter and verify that in fact the switch is not grounding pin 31b or whatever I said it was.

 

Ok, will do the check, I was going to get a cruise control unit out of an '88 at a local junk yard anyway so that might just fix the switch problem anyway. They only wanted $75 from the junk yard. I hope that switch is good.

 

Well I went junk yard fishing today and got most of the parts from the old 88 240 that I need to put into my 87 and when I just installed the new cruse turn signal switch the High beams came on! yeah! on thing down now to install all those other parts. oh boy lots of fun....