Questions On Headlight Rewiring

[87BeachCruiser]

I started to rewire and relay the headlights last night and got something wrong. Headlights came on as soon as I connected the battery and were SMOKING hot. Anyway, before I go back tonight and try to sort it out, I had a couple questions:

 

-I assume everyone is tapping into the wires from the switch up front, somewhere around the air intake? Does anyone know offhand what color is what here? I thought I had it figured out (used a meter) but obviously got something switched around.

 

-What's the best thing to insulate the crimped connectors at the relays and the other splices? You just tape the hell out of it?

 

-Did you solder or make new connections at the bulb sockets? Or just splice in close to those?

 

-Did you rewire ground all around or leave the stock ground? And if re-wired, grounded to the chassis somewhere or back to the battery?

 

Thanks for your help.

[87BeachCruiser]

More stupid questions, went back last night and thought I had this figured out but it's not working:

 

In the "headlights performing poorly" thread it's stated:

 

"the ground wire in the harness is the one in the middle. if you're looking at the harness head on, from left to right, it's high beam positive, ground (negative), low beam positive. a ground wire is any wire bolted directly to the frame. so if you don't want to mess with the harness's ground/negative wire, that's no problem as it's general practice to bolt a wire to the frame and use that as a ground wire."

 

Does this jive with what others have found? I rewired one side to stock just to check it, and here's what I found. In the mess 'o wires up by the driver's side front fender, there are four red wires with blue 'bands' or horizontal stripes, each one having a different color stripe running along the wire ('vertically' or whatever):

 

Black = right (looking from in front of truck) low beam.

Yelllow = right high beam

Green = left low beam

Blue = left high beam

 

Then there are two ground wires (also coming from the switch) that are black w/ red (or maybe brown, can't remember) horizontal stripes. These do not go to the middle of the light sockets, they're on one side. I can't imagine that Nissan would run a red (hot), a black (hot) and a red (ground)- that doesn't make sense to me, although the wire in the middle of the socket on each side is definitely a red wire....

 

On the Daniel Stern site it says:

 

"SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR GROUND-SWITCHED SYSTEMS

 

Many Japanese vehicles, as well as a few others, use a "ground-switched" headlamp circuit. In these circuits, the headlamp and beam selector switch break or complete the ground side of the headlamp circuit, rather than the feed side. On these systems, it's imperative to use both negative and positive existing headlamp wires to trigger the relays. It is tempting to run the existing headlamp feed wire to relay terminal 86 (trigger feed) and simply find a convenient ground for relay terminal 85 (trigger ground). However, this will not work with ground-switched systems. Run the vehicle's existing feed wire to terminal 86, and run the vehicle's existing ground wire to terminal85."

 

So I was running the grounds (black w/ red horizontal stripes) to the 85 terminals, then looking to ground the headlights on the truck somewhere... anyway, this looked good to me but when I hooked it up, nada.

 

I appreciate any input here- is the middle (red) wire on each harness definitely the ground? That would then mean the black wires are either the high or low beam feeds.

 

Help! If I can't get this figured out I'm gonna have to drive the truck into mid-town, leave it parked somewhere and let the NYPD blow it up with a robot.

 

Thanks.

[Kingman]

Pictures... there should be 3 wires to each 9004 series bulb. Middle is ground and the two remaining are high and low beams.

[87BeachCruiser]

Pictures are worth a thousand words and I was close to that already! Thanks for the response- if the middle is definitely ground than it's a red hot, red ground and black hot to each socket, which makes no sense. It would also mean that there's two different colored wires for R&L high beams, two different colors for R&L ground, and two of the same color for R&L low beams. But I'll definitely try it again that way and let you know how it goes. Thanks.

 

Confirm for me that there are six different wires coming from the headlight switch that I need to connect to the relays- two grounds, two highs and two lows. Yeah?

[kiwipete]

Pictures are worth a thousand words and I was close to that already! Thanks for the response- if the middle is definitely ground than it's a red hot, red ground and black hot to each socket, which makes no sense. It would also mean that there's two different colored wires for R&L high beams, two different colors for R&L ground, and two of the same color for R&L low beams. But I'll definitely try it again that way and let you know how it goes. Thanks.

 

Confirm for me that there are six different wires coming from the headlight switch that I need to connect to the relays- two grounds, two highs and two lows. Yeah?

Yes the switch has 2 sets of contacts on it as has been covered many times before. One set does the LH side, the other the RH side.

This is why some people complain of one side or the other not working as one or the other contact has worn or corroded etc. I bridged my "pairs" up at the light harness near lights themselves and added new relays to operate both Hi and LO beams. I have not had any issues to date with this modification. I include a wiring diagram here in this message that "may" be of assistance to you.

Lighting circuitry

Rewired socket

RH socket

LH socket

Wiring relay to lights

 

Hope this helps some, search my posts, I have a thread on here about the above mods.

Edited May 4, 2010 by kiwipete

[87BeachCruiser]

Kiwi Pete, thanks for posting that stuff. I am looking at the diagram from the 94 FSM, and if (big if) I'm reading it correctly then it confirms what I thought, the black from each is the ground. I still can't figure out why everyone says ground is in the middle. I feel like I'm missing something obvious. Anyway, I won't be back under the hood until Thursday at the earliest, so I'll report back with some pics.

 

By the way I took a look at your truck and it is awesome. I won't second guess you on anything regarding electronics. That thing has about as many gizmos and whizbangs as a nuclear submarine. I thought I was cool with my stereo and CB.... fugheddaboutit.

[silverton]

I wish I could offer assistance, other than this link. But I'm fairly sure you would rather spend 50 dollars on this, than have a huge headache and no lights.

 

http://suvlights.com/product_info.php?products_id=112

 

Basically plug and play. You plug your stock headlight connectors into the harness, find a place to secure the relays, wire up the positive to the battery, ground to the chassis, and plug the other end into your headlight bulbs.

[kiwipete]

Kiwi Pete, thanks for posting that stuff. I am looking at the diagram from the 94 FSM, and if (big if) I'm reading it correctly then it confirms what I thought, the black from each is the ground. I still can't figure out why everyone says ground is in the middle. I feel like I'm missing something obvious. Anyway, I won't be back under the hood until Thursday at the earliest, so I'll report back with some pics.

 

By the way I took a look at your truck and it is awesome. I won't second guess you on anything regarding electronics. That thing has about as many gizmos and whizbangs as a nuclear submarine. I thought I was cool with my stereo and CB.... fugheddaboutit.

Thanks with the compliments re my rig, I am a bit of an electrical enthusiast, but I am always open to ideas and suggestions.

As you can see from those pictures I posted with mu light plugs, the black (ground wires) are NOT the centre wires as far as the pin configuration is concerned, as is shown when you look at the one I opened up after putting in the heavy duty wiring.

I think this may be a misconception as most see this black (ground) wire going into the centre of the plug and making an assumption it is the centre pin from there.

I would strongly suggest you have a good hard look at your wiring and try too do something similar along the lines of what I have done, you will not be disappointed. A small selection of wire (1.5 diameter), heat shrink, two 10A fuses (waterproof), two relays, crimplugs and some tools is all it takes.

Heat shrink all wire joins after you have soldered the wires, remembering to slide the heat shrink on first, been there, done that too....

Please do not twist and tape the wires together, you will be asking for trouble.

Do it once and do it properly I say.

G'luck.

 

Just as a foot note, I paralled the wires together at the old light sockets and made a new harness for each socket via the new relays. with a simple voltage meter you can work out which is the HI and LO beam wires in each side and then just pair them up. Same goes with the ground (black) wires too.

Edited May 5, 2010 by kiwipete

[87BeachCruiser]

Since I'm sure y'all were losing sleep at night wondering whether I'd got this sorted out, some pictures before the final tape up. I'm very happy with the result- lights are brighter, switch works properly, and there is a very satisfying audible 'click' when I turn on the lights and brights.

 

Tapped in at the passenger side, combined the highs and lows and ran across one wire for each (Low - yellow; high - red), and one for each ground wire.

 

 

 

Relayed. I got a set of PIAA 4" spots for free, so next job is to install those, then get a nice waterproof relay box. I'd also like to get a fuse box and get rid of all those inline fuses (red and orange are amp and CB) at the battery at some point.

 

 

Thanks for the help.

Edited May 14, 2010 by 87BeachCruiser

[kiwipete]

Well done, you have learned well my son. lol

Saved yourself a lot of headache and hassles too, and have the satisfaction of doing it yourself.

[ahardb0dy]

to eliminate all the extra wires going to the positive battery post what I did on my 87 hardbody was to run a piece of 4 gauge car audio power cable from the positive to a distribution block I bought made by Moroso, than I connected all my accessory wires to that, keeps the positive terminal neater, can't find a pic of it but all it was was a plastic base with a stud sticking up from the base and it had a plastic cover.

 

you could also eliminate all the separate fuse holders and use something like this:

 

Edited May 15, 2010 by ahardb0dy