BC

How our headlight system works, in a sort of overview way?

I am chasing some wires, have the wiring diagram, and understand that when you go to the final detent in in the headlight switch, you are doing two things, and I believe they are related in the headlight relay, possibly.

The headlight motor turns to a certain point, or its powered to that point, and when it reaches that point, the SEPARATE wires of the actual headlight filaments themselves are given 12V.

I have read of people having headlights that turn on before they are upright, and of headlights who can get upright but do not turn on.

I am wiring fixed headlights into the front of the car, and what I want to do is make damn sure I understand fundamental relay-switching info on this system before I start making local-area relay purchases.

For the time being I will be making the bumper headlights the "actual headlights" and I will be wiring them to 12V powered relays from the front posts. I do not know what I will be doing about brights at this time.

So the explanation of what is happening in the process would help, because obviously there will be no more "movement" and I wish for the headlights to just be powered up when I put the pod switch in the proper position.

Apart from that - does anyone have any ideas on how to get some good headlights in the bumper box area?

Alan

headlights in the bumper are too low to be really good - difficult to aim well, and small...

Dump the stock headlight relay if you don't need the pod motor. there is no simple way to describe it to you - its just very complicated, and all of that is complexity is related to the motor interactions. For basic headlights 2 standard relays is all you need - on/off and high/low.

Alan

Ducman82

i just got an innovate AF gauge installed last night and you need to wire the "dimmer" wire to the headlight power. so when the lights come on, the gauge dims (reostate won't work, mess up the gauge i guess)
i spent 3 hours trying to figure out a wire down at the CE that i could tap in to that when the headlights are on, stays powered. but the high and low wires switch on and off... so i ended up taping in to the parking lights. headlights are one complicated system for sure....

Alan

Actually you probably didn't want hreadlights for this anyway - prob. just marker lights - either way the wire from the headlight switch is what you wanted... The console illumination works too (same thing as markers).

Alan

BC

I have separated out all of the signal wires for the front loom, and will be separating that section of "things" from the rest of the ECU loom (front ignition amps, coils, grounds, etc) so that it will be easier to replace that second section later.

I have removed all of the grounds and will replace them with new connections when I figure this lighting scheme out.

Thanks for the responses. Headlight height is not very high, but right now i need the space in the headlight area and can put in higher headlights there when the time comes. All of my driving is in the day, and if its at night, its just home from work.

I will now endeavor to learn more about where these wires go and how they are switched.

I have bundled the wires that went to the headlight motor and hopefully will never have to deal with them on this car again.

BC

SO If I wanted for the **** on the pod just to turn on the lines that go to the headlights (I will be putting in other stuff), do I simply jumper one of the sets of 30 and 87 posts on the headlight relay socket? I have removed the entire loom that is the coil, lighting, and AC loom for the front of the car.

WallyP

I would have tried to give more info, but had no idea what year we are talking about...

The short answer is that if you have pulled the harness to/from the headlamps, no, the headlamp relay will not work.

neilh

Brendan, tell me exactly what you are trying to achieve, what year wiring chart, and i'll give you a step by step.....

BC

The car is an 86.5 Wally. I am changing the lighting scenario and removing the headlamps for now and will use brighter items in the bumper. The air-to-air intercooler precludes the pop up headlights.

All I wish to do is to make sure when I put the wiring loom back in, if I need to jumper the combo-relay I know where to do it.

I have the entire wiring diagram taped together for easy viewing.

Alan

Just remove the combo relay and forget it. You will need to do some rewiring. You need 2 new SPDT Bosch style relays. Using the wires at the combo relay socket you can set this up easily. If it were me I'd change around the connections to reuse those 2 (paired) sockets but you could add this seperately as well and just tap into the socket. If you want to reuse the stock loom wiring and fuses then feed the output side back into the combo socket too.

One relay is fed from 15/X supply to its 30 term. 86 goes to headlight switch (posn 2) and 85 to gnd
This creates your new "headlight on" on its 87 term.

"Headlight on" is fed to the 30 term of the second relay with outputs 87 & 87a being your low / high beam feeds. 86 gets the dip switch input and 85 to gnd.

Do not under any circumstances use the switch to drive the headlights directly... you will damage wiring and switch.

Alan

BC

Thanks Alan. I appreciate your info. That is starting to make sense. I will not be wiring any loads through the switch, and I actually wanted to somehow circumvent the panel in the passenger footwell enough so that no real power would be going through anything but a short power line run from the front + post area to the front lighting loom - sort of making all those .5 and 1.0 wires in the loom simple signal wires to power relays as you described - but with the relays at the front of the car for very short large-gauge runs.

But again - looking at the wiring diagrams and your description does make sense - thank you.

What say you?

Alan

OK so more detail for you:

Not sure what year this is on - this is for an '88 early cars vary a little in terminal designations...

So below are the 2 new relays with connection mapped from the relay terminal to the terminal you need to connect to on the headlight relay socket on the CE panel, also with a note as to what its function is.

Headlights on Relay:
=============
Relay Terminal <-> CE panel headlight relay socket, (what for)

86 <-> 86M, (Switch to Relay Coil)
85 <-> 31, (Coil Ground)
30 <->30, (Power Supply)
87 <-> To New High/Low Relay, (Headlights on Output)
87a <-> No Connection (-)

High/Low Beam Switching Relay
====================
Relay Terminals <-> CE panel headlight relay socket, (what for)

86 <-> 86, (56a High[/Low] Beam Switch to relay coil)
85 <-> 31, (Coil Ground)
30 <-> From New Headlights On Relay, (Headlights on input)
87 <-> 56a, (High Beams [56a])
87a <->56b, (Low Beams [56b])

Alan

Alan

OK well to do it remotely you just need to figure out how to get the connections you need to the front of the car. This will mean you will also need to do the fusing at the front also.

You will note in the above that you really only need 2 critical connections from the Relay socket to the front of the car - you can find power (jump post) and ground (any ground point) at the front. The 56a/56b high low beam wires will just go via new fuses direct to the bulbs.

From the headlight relay the 56a and 56b wires in the stock loom go (via the stock fuses) to the headlights only (both sides) - so you could use those existing small wires to carry the 86M & 86 terminals to the headlights for your new relays. To do this you'd just jump 86 to say 56a and 86M to 56b on the empty headlitght relay socket - then locate those wires at the front to go to your new relays.

Alan

BC

Thanks a bunch. I'm
Going to take your posts and go stare at the wiring diagrams and the relay panel at home tonight. Wiring is one of my "have to sit there and think" things, and you've been a great help.

Anthony Maxwell

i havw a 1980 porsche 928 theheadlights are giving me hell my problem they will go up and down but wont stop or turn on can anyone help?