headlight relay help

[2dollys]

Hello all, just a quick question. I am about to fit relays to the headlamps on my 1500HL,to prevent any more column switch "smoke out", and am not sure where to break in to the loom feeding from the column ot the lamps. Is it the loom at the offside(driver?) under the carbs ,or at the nearside (passenger?) passing forward to the front ?. I have a panel made up with 2 relays an a small fuse box attached and pre wired,now all I have to figure out is which side to break into. I have 1 40amp relay for dips and 1 40amp relay for heads,both fused. Thanks in advance. PJB

[Flyfisherman]

PJB

Its the loom on the off side (drivers side).

Green & Red cable feeds the dip beam (outers only) even though these are a double filament lamps.

Blue & White cable feeds the main beem (outers and inner)

Regards
paul

[2dollys]

Thanks Paul,no more smoke now ,well hopefully not anyway.PJ Byrne

[JPB]

Sure, if you don't want to be able to switch the dipped beams off then do it that way, otherwise take the dipped beam supply from the feed to the switch and the main beam one from the o/s/f behind the lamps, but making sure you take that at the thicker of the two cables that colour in the bullet where one thick and two thinner ones are met, as the other one goes from the supply to the individual lamps and presents a much longer, hence potentially more resistive route. No need to cut anything, just buy 3-way female bullets where 2-way ones are used, they may already have enough 3-way ones on there, some do.

(To clarify; it's fine for MOT purposes to have both dipped beams and high beams up together for the purpose of that exercise, indeed I did mine that way and many cars came from the factory like that. But the extra load, although it won't hurt the stalk and the switch once you have relays, will take more out of the alternator and I expect that in a 1500, it would come close to stalling the engine at idle on a night when you're also using the HRW, the blower and the wipers).

[2dollys]

Thanks John,but I am not sure what you mean"take the supply for the dip beam at the supply to the switch", is this the heavy blue feeding the dipswitch from the master light switch?. I have already found the bullet connector that you mention at o/s/f,so no problem there. You posted an excellent wiring diagram for relaying lamp,but I searched the forum in vain last night for it,without any luck,do you have a link to it please? .PJB

[soe8m]

All fits in the steerringcolomn cover. Take the brown main feed as relay mainfeed and cut the wires to the headlamps. Put the one half as switched on the relay to the lights and the other halfs from the switch as signal to the relay. There's room for two relais behind the cover easy.

Jeroen

[2dollys]

Thanks Jeroen. I have 2 relays and a fuse box mounted on a plate and am going to fit it on the right hand inner wing in front of the suspension turret.I intend to cut the blue/white and the blue/red wires feeding the lamps at the chassis rail and feed the relays via the fusebox directly from the battery,but John(jpb) has a different idea to this. Has anyone got a handy link to the excellent wiring diagram that JPB posted on here? . Thanks. PJB

[JPB]

All fits in the steering column cover. Take the brown main feed as relay main feed and cut the wires to the headlamps. Put the one half as switched on the relay to the lights and the other halves from the switch as signal to the relay. There's room for two relays behind the cover easy.

Jeroen

Apart from the suggestion of cutting wires I like that idea except that you'd have to take care to use a dipped beam relay that's switched on the earth side and fitted with a diode or doing it like that will definitely have all six lamps lit simultaneously when on high beam.

If that's what's required then fine, just don't do it that way and complain when a Police Officer pulls you over and spends an hour of your time failing to find a reason to arrest you for doing it that way.

Thanks Jeroen. I have 2 relays and a fuse box mounted on a plate and am going to fit it on the right hand inner wing in front of the suspension turret.I intend to cut the blue/white and the blue/red wires feeding the lamps at the chassis rail and feed the relays via the fusebox directly from the battery,but John(jpb) has a different idea to this. Has anyone got a handy link to the excellent wiring diagram that JPB posted on here? . Thanks. PJB

I can't find it now, will keep looking but Jeroen's idea is certainly a neat way of doing it and ideal for someone who wants every part of their car to work reliably but appear as standard.

[2dollys]

I have 2 seperate relays 1 for the dips and 1 for the high beam I was intending to trigger 1 for dip beam from blue/red cable which is live on dip only and switches off when high beam is selected, and trigger other relay for high beam from blue/white cable which is only live when high beam is selected. Is this not correct? it what I used to do with other brands in the late 70's and early 80's with various sporty Escorts that I used to own,and never had both high and low beam on together. Is Dolly wiring different ? or is there some kind of link in the cables that needs to be wired differently? .PJB

[soe8m]

No, just two relais and no diodes. Now drawing and will post.

Jeroen

[soe8m]

This is it. In the picture of the interiour of my daily you can see how neatly it fits inside the cover. It cannot be seen that there are extra relais fitted for the std. lights.

Jeroen

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[Edin Dundee]

You are absolutely right Jeroen, that Dolomite looks perfectly standard to me.

[2dollys]

Thanks Jeroen.This is what I intend to do,but using the blue/red and blue /white wires at the r/h/front at the chassis rail,just in front of the suspension turret,instead of inside of the car. I intend to solder my relays into the wires here and take a fused link direct from the battery to feed the lamps via the relays. PJB

[Jon Tilson]

Green and red cable? You mean blue and red surely. Your wires have faded dude...

Plain red is side lights and green is indicators with tracers for that side....

On dollies its blue red for dip and blue white for mains....


I might try that to get H1 dips back on the Snag...thanks Jeroen.

Jonners

[tinweevil]

I have 2 seperate relays 1 for the dips and 1 for the high beam I was intending to trigger 1 for dip beam from blue/red cable which is live on dip only and switches off when high beam is selected, and trigger other relay for high beam from blue/white cable which is only live when high beam is selected. Is this not correct? it what I used to do with other brands in the late 70's and early 80's with various sporty Escorts that I used to own,and never had both high and low beam on together. Is Dolly wiring different ? or is there some kind of link in the cables that needs to be wired differently? .PJB

[EDITED]. You'll only have all 6 filaments lit when you pull the stalk to use the pass light / flash.

You are taking the best course by putting the relays at the front of the car, I took measurements when I did this on mine recently and gained 1.5 volts at the lamp simply from the shorter cable runs and less switchgear in the circuit. I put my relays hidden between inner & outer front panel and for relay control I simply used the wires that used to connect to the near side outer headlamp with no cutting. All current carrying wire was in a new loom that simply plugs in to the 3 way in line connector for the outer lamp. The new loom is one piece all the way to the lamps so there are less connection points to corrode.

To give me a good reliable source of power I replaced the standard battery +ve lead with a Sprint/1850 one cut down. This has the red power take off built in from which I took two nice fat feeds to a new fuse box also mounted by the battery.