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Hey gang. Took my 2302 out tonight. Was in the middle of another wonderful drive when, seemingly out of nowhere, my headlights and dash lights cut out, came back on, then back out. I had the high beams on, so I hit the dimmer switch and everything straightened back out without for the rest of the drive. I tried to get it to do it again when I got back to the neighborhood, but nothing - high beams just worked fine.

Obviously something is off and failing. In your view, is this more likely a dimmer switch or headlight switch issue? I would ASSUME it's the dimmer, but you know what they say about assuming. Thanks in advance!

It's the circuit breaker on the back of the headlight switch. That's the only device in the entire lights circuit that can kill all your lights, aside from the light switch itself not being pulled out to one of the set positions.

The high beams draw more current so that's why the issue went away with the low beams.

It would be hard to reproduce except to leave the headlights on for the same amount of time and at the same voltage as before.

Replacement:
napaonline.com/en/p/BK_7823107

It probably is the old breaker losing capacity that is causing the problem and it would be a good idea to change it due to age alone. There is a chance though that the dimmer sw or possibly one of the wires connecting to the hi beam filaments or briteness indicator light has developed an intermittent short.

It might be a bit tight but you should be able to access the wires and the nuts holding the breaker and change it without removing the switch panel. Breaker is mounted on a phenolic or fiber plate which is part of the switch so do not stress or twist anything when working with the breaker or the fiber plate could crack.

If you do need to remove the panel for access it is held to the chrome front and knob portion by two barrel nuts recessed between switches. You will need to unscrew the vent controls and push them aside to have room for the panel to slide toward the firewall and then tilt down. Not sure if you will need to remove the radio but since the radio has hooks that go into a portion of the switch assy it is possible.

Do be careful when moving the switch panel so as not to stress and bend the old wiring loom excessively or the old and probably dry rubber insulation under the fabric wire covering may crack and disintegrate. If that happens in wires somewhere under the outer braided or wrapped loom there could be hidden shorts in your future.

Here are a couple of photos of the switch assy which I believe BDeB posted some years ago.

Just did this job last week on a '50. You can do it under the dash with fair ease but you will need to pull the wires out of the adjacent instrument light switch to provide a little more room to get the breaker out of position. They plug in but take a good yank to remove. It was all over in about 10 minutes and all you need is a small 3/8" wrench.

Right on, guys! Figured it wouldn't be anything too crazy. This helps a ton. I'll start digging into it tomorrow. Thank you so much!