How To Fix Your Abysmal Headlights

[altezzaclub]

Good to hear it worked for you!

[snot35]

I really want to do this mod, but the khana car rarely sees the dark. Excellent mod altezza, I like the use of the DSLR too :)

[the witzl]

you could also buy all these same parts for a hell of a lot cheaper at Jaycar, and even have enough extra spare funds to use a proper relay base socket.

 

i would also recommend using fully insulted terminals to avoid accidental electrical shorts, or use proper relay bases.

[towe001]

On the circuit i'd make two changes

1. The fuses i'd swap for auto reset circuit breakers. Like these ones on ebay - http://www.ebay.com....984.m1423.l2649
2. Proper H4 plugs. Ebay again - http://www.ebay.com....984.m1423.l2649

The circuit breakers are safer to use at night. If they blow, they'll reset and go through the cycle again till you switch the circuit off. If the fuse blows thats it, you'll have to drive by braille.

 

The H4 plugs would mean your not trying to reuse the old ones or if your using the spade connections and a light blows your not trying to figure out what plug goes where.

 

Don't worry Al, i remember you doing this write-up ages ago back on the late ke70.com. It'd just be an update on new techniques.

[the witzl]

Most manufacturers still uses fuses for headlight circuitry (in fact ALL that i am aware of do). There would have to be good solid reasoning behind this.

In fact, most factory cars now days have one fuse per headlight - so that if one blows you still have the other available.

 

The fuse is there predominantly as a short circuit protection, rather than overcurrent protection. An electrical short is the 95% reason a headlight fuse would blow.

Hence - autoreset breaker is not a wise idea.

You should have a fuse, so that if you replace it, fuse blows again, forcing you to find the electrical short.

 

I would also agree with replacing H4 sockets with new ones. The old KE70 H4 sockets ive always seen are brittle and farked.

[towe001]

Hence - autoreset breaker is not a wise idea.

You should have a fuse, so that if you replace it, fuse blows again, forcing you to find the electrical short.

Yeah i know the reason behind using a fuse but when the lights blow at the wrong time you'll be left thinking "where the hell am i ?"

 

If your just the typical driver that wouldn't bother with upgrading the lights, then stick with the fuse. Because with the auto reset breaker you'd be inclined to just leave them alone since they keep resetting, so why bother.

[altezzaclub]

A male version of those Egay plugs would be good. That would plug into the stock headlamp plug that supplies the switching power.

 

Anyway, a week or two back I lost the main beam, and forgot that I had seeing main beam hardly ever gets used. Finally I checked it all yesterday and found the mods are working fine, but the dipswitch on the column doesn't seem to be. Its on my desk beside me as I work out just how those copper contacts all work... Some bad contact in there somewhere...

[towe001]

I had a brief search for a male h4 plug on the net when i did the lights on my old '30 and couldn't find anything.

Had the thought of just cutting the plug off and either using spade connections or soldering the wires, but didn't like the idea of it.

[the witzl]

just use male spade connectors.

It's what i've done in the past when wiring up quad hi-lo's on multiple RA28/RA23 celicas and old crowns. AFAIK, all still work perfectly up to 7 years later.

[ke70dave]

yeah spade connectors work good.

 

Or for a little bit of extra confidence a dab of solder on the spade connector once you have connected it.

[the witzl]

Don't solder a spade connection. The vibrations in a car will eventually crack the solder and give you a dry joint contact.... Not good.

[altezzaclub]

Don't solder a spade connection. The vibrations in a car will eventually crack the solder and give you a dry joint contact

 

that's quite a dilemma, as my crimping never seems as tight as the factory ones and I worry about loose joints in the crimped tabs. Mostly I crimp them to hold them in place while I solder them!

[the witzl]

ah... you need a better crimping tool then!

Soldering in your case is probably better than a loose crimp

[altezzaclub]

Ok, with this thread revival I did some more work on things that niggled me about this conversion.The original diagram had a drawing of the three pins at the back of a bulb, labelled COM, HI, LO, which is the 'common', the power supply, (red/black wire R/B) and the pins taking power back through the 'high beam' filament (red /yellow R/Y) or the 'low beam' filament. (red/green R/G )

 

Now, I reckon they had this wrong. They have the LOW opposite the COM on the plug, with the HIGH on the top tab. Here is the diagram and a picture of my passenger's headlight plug facing towards you. It will plug into a bulb with the HIGH opposite the COM. This is important, as their wiring diagram in the top left corner is correct. The blue 'high-beam' light doesn't work when on low beam, as the low beam bulb earths out through the same wire. However when you switch to high beam, the power in that line goes to earth through the blue light and it shines. Without using the stock low beam circuit we need to fit that diode & resistor to make it light up.

Edited April 2, 2012 by altezzaclub

[Medicine_Man]

you need a good set of ratchet crimpers (Highly recommend quikcrimp ratchet crimpers)..

 

http://www.quikcrimp.com.au/application-tooling-kits-storage/precision-tooling/crimp-tool-pre-insulated-terminals-560.html