Hello,

Long time lurker here. This site has helped me fix and improve countless things on my 89 Xtra Cab, 4WD, V6, 5 speed. I saw the threads on headlight wiring and looked into myself. Here’s my build…

When I first read about the inadequate head light wiring, I was a little bit skeptic.
Here are the results of my testing of voltage drops at several points. I now agree that fixing the wiring is before better bulbs.
Stock Headlight Voltages

http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...htVoltages.jpg

While waiting for my head lights and relays from Rallylights.com, I drew up the wiring modifications. Hope you don’t mind it being hand drawn.

http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...tSchematic.jpg

Cool, the brown truck came today. Here are the Hella E code conversion lights, 55/100W bulbs and some nice weather proof relays.

http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...erisionKit.jpg

I started by making the relay mounting bracket.

http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...ngBracket1.jpg

Keeping it metric

http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...ngBracket2.jpg

Here are the relays mounted.

http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...aysMounted.jpg

Next I ran a new wire from the gauge cluster to the high beam relay. I did this so the high beam indicator is powered off the high beam relay out and not the low beam relays coil.

http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...pswithtext.jpg

Here I have cut off the H4 connector about an inch from the harness. The R-B wire is connected to both relay coil blue wires. The R-G wire connects to the low beam relay coil black. The R-Y wire connects to the high beam relay coil black.

http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...yConnected.jpg

Next I installed the fuses. The black fuse holder is the 30A primary power fuse. The mini blade holder is the 2A going to the high beam indicator light. I installed this fuse because the wire is #28. If it became shorted to ground, it may burn before blowing the 30A fuse.
The 10 ohm 1 watt resister lowers the brightness of the high beam indicator (as per Project4Crawler). It’s incased in Plumbers Goop. The other side of the fuse connects to the HB relay OUT.


http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...rent=Fuses.jpg

Here all the electrical connects are done. The driver’s side connector is also connected.
I made sure that where the wires enter the fuse box are a loose fit. I figure if the wires were pinched tight. Heat, vibration and time could cause the insulation to wear through. I used a Dremel to open up the bottom cover of the fuse box.

http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...nswithText.jpg

All finished. Took about 6 hours and I’m happy with the result. No exposed hot terminals and weather proof connectors like the rest of the engine bay.

http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...ngFinished.jpg

These pictures show the voltages while the 100W HB is on. From what I read, this is good results.

Battery
http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...ageBattery.jpg

Drivers side HB bulb blades.

http://s1169.photobucket.com/albums/...oltageBulb.jpg

Last task was to wait till dark and follow this aiming procedure.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html

Well that’s it. I hope this is helpful to you guys. I have yet to drive on an unlit road at night. So I can’t comment yet on the improvement in illumination but I will update later.

Thanks for reading,
Barry

PS I see my post does not have thumbnails for the pictures. I'll read up and fix later.

 

Thanks for sharing your work, btu44

Yeah, makes sense. Just did voltage drop readings on mine

In low beam:
Voltage across batt: 12.05V, across Bulb 11.15V
volt drop: 7.5% of battery voltage.
In high Beam: Voltage across batt 11.94, across bulb 10.07
Volt drop: 15.7% of battery voltage

Those drops are indeed significant and justifies wiring upgrade before even converting to H4 housings.

Looks good!. I'd like to leave wiring as stock as possible so am wondering: IF the segment of R-G wire below and where it splices into HB indicator is accessible, we would not have to run an additional wire into the dash. Did you check if it's accessible from the wire bundles in engine compartment or under wheel well?


I'm still shopping for relays. May I know which model you used and whether they came with matching sockets?

BTW, in case you haven't tried, yet, if you copy the "Image" url from photo bucket and paste it directly into you post, pic will be embedded.

Format would be:
[IMG] http:forward slash-slash... [/img]

 

i tried to fix the code on your pics to get the images but no luck, just copy amd paste the [img] code like rad4Runner suggested..