Demon Brat Posted September 13, 2014 Share Posted September 13, 2014 Typical problem. 1979 Brat with weak and dim headlights. Also experienced the super hot lights fuse. The fuse block was melted and we would blow fuses. Converted that to a newer spade type fuse and it quit blowing but still got hot. I measured the voltage at the headlights before doing anything. I had 9.4 to dims and 10.4 to brights with car off. With car running the voltage would jump to 11.2 and 12. At the battery I would have 12.4 off and around 14 running. My son and I bought the plug and play rewire kit with relays and wired everything up today. Now I have 13-14 volts at the dim and brights when running. This was really easy and we did not have to damage, cut, splice or remove any of the original wiring. Plus, my light fuse is now fine. It does not even get warm anymore. This is just an FYI post if anyone else is having problems like this, it was easy and seems to have cured my hot fuse and dim light problem. We bought this from eBay and it works great. http://pages.ebay.com/motors/link/?nav=item.view&id=331214602226&alt=web Have a great day. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonas Posted September 13, 2014 Share Posted September 13, 2014 Interesting. Having issues with my '85 Brat. I Have an idea on whats wrong but if not, that seems like an easy, inexpensive fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubastreet Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 I used this: http://www.dx.com/p/car-headlight-h4-plug-fog-light-socket-set-black-255413 It only does two headlights but the relays were big enough to handle splicing in two more sockets for the other bulbs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spicypeanut Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 I used this: http://www.dx.com/p/car-headlight-h4-plug-fog-light-socket-set-black-255413 It only does two headlights but the relays were big enough to handle splicing in two more sockets for the other bulbs. Please forgive my ignorance but, how are you supposed to integrate this into the factory wiring? Can you break it down for me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubastreet Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 The yellow plug goes into the headlight socket nearest the battery, and the two green sockets plug into the headlights. The red wire goes to the battery +ve and the black wires go to the car chassis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spicypeanut Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 Oh I think isee, you are actually using the new cabling and completely bypassing the factory wires. You unplug the factory wires from the fuse block inside the car, and plug the new wires in, run them into the engine bay and connect it to the battery, and then to the head light bulbs themselves. Is that correct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spicypeanut Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 Or wait, is it supposed to interface with the factory wiring? So you just plug the headlight into the new wiring, and the new wiring plugs into the old wiring, without having to mess with anything? I think I need a crude paint drawing to understand it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demon Brat Posted September 16, 2014 Author Share Posted September 16, 2014 It is simple. You unplug all four connectors from the back of the headlights. I left them and taped them all off EXCEPT the one next to the battery. This connector is plugged into the passenger side outside headlight. It has three wires going into it. One hot for DIM, one hot for Bright and a ground. The new kit has a connector that plugs right into that headlight connector. Then you plug the other four connectors into the appropriate headlights. Find a good ground for each headlight. Connect the kit's hot wire to the battery and your done. A few zippy ties and you a sporting super bright headlights. Here is how it works. Before, when you turned your lights on the power had to run through all the factory wiring, switches and fuses to power up the headlights. With age, the wiring gets bad and you lose voltage. I had about 9 volts with the car off and barely 11 with it running. All this resistance made the bottom fuse very hot and it even melted the fuse block prior to us owning it. Now, when you turn your lights on, the power coming from the factory wiring (remember that one headlight connector you hooked up to the kit), turns on the relay that connects new wiring straight from the battery to your headlights. Thus, you get 13+ volts with the car running. it deceases the load on the factory wiring so the bottom fuse stays cool. The kits gives you easy instructions like below. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spicypeanut Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 Thank you so much for explaining it in detail. I get it now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonas Posted November 27, 2014 Share Posted November 27, 2014 Ok, I got this kit for my '85 Brat. It's working great except it's got me running hi beams constant no matter what position my hi/lo switch is in. Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloyale Posted November 27, 2014 Share Posted November 27, 2014 Ok, I got this kit for my '85 Brat. It's working great except it's got me running hi beams constant no matter what position my hi/lo switch is in. Any ideas? Your 85 brat is a ground switched system.... You need to reverse the polarity of the triggering of the relays. The set is probably wired for positive switching. My guess is you will need to rearrange the plug that goes into the original socket. IIRC it's one of the outer posts that should have 12v when lights are on........this is where you will want the positves of all the relay coils to attach to. The other 2 pins of the original socket should connect to ground one at a time with the Hi/Lo beam switch...........these need to connect to the ground side of the relay coils for corresponding Hi/Lo. I did something similar using an old A/C and fan relay set from a legacy. http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/136060-headlight-upgrade/?hl=%2Bheadlight+%2Bupgrade Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloyale Posted November 27, 2014 Share Posted November 27, 2014 (edited) You would alter this diagrahm so that the currently black (ground) wires at the 85 would instead be the green/yellow of factory light connector. The 86 pins would get 12v+ from the 3 pin at the factory connector (from stock relay).....or you could hook them in with the fused 12v+ line you added to the battery. Tis diagrahm also doen't really match the wiring shown in the pic.......This diagrahm shows all grounds tied to one wire at the body.......the pictured kit has the Relay grounding through the original wiring.......and then each light seperate.....which would be REALLY not the correct setup for a 82 plus model with gorund switching. Edited November 27, 2014 by Gloyale 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonas Posted November 27, 2014 Share Posted November 27, 2014 Hey thanks! A little wet out right now so i'll have to tackle it later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonas Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 So what you are saying, trying to dumb this down for myself , is that I need to rearrange the 3 wires from the new harness that plug into the the old harness/light plug as the current set-up is not triggering the new relays properly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonas Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 SUCCESS!!!!!!!! Had to rearrange the 3 wires on the new harness where it plugs into the existing harness. Thanks G! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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