Charger1970's world famous headlight relay upgrade

[Foreman72]

i will certainly be doing this...

[roger01]

yup ,ive done the alternater and voltage regulator upgrade and distributor to electronic ..next is the running of paralell wires to the amp guage in the dash.......but its just too dam hot up here to work  ...
   who said its cold in canada ...

[myk]

How many 'amps is your 'alt rated at? I wanted to run 130 or more but I chickened out and left it at 90...

[roger01]

mine 90 aswell

[myk]

The Charger was prowling tonight, and I guess my 90 'amp 'alt and upgraded headlight relays were so bright people were flashing their hi's at me.  I can imagine their surprise when I flashed my hi's back at them.  Man these stock halogens are BRIGHT and I haven't even gone HID or anything trick like that yet...

[oldcarnut]

The Charger was prowling tonight, and I guess my 90 'amp 'alt and upgraded headlight relays were so bright people were flashing their hi's at me.  I can imagine their surprise when I flashed my hi's back at them.  Man these stock halogens are BRIGHT and I haven't even gone HID or anything trick like that yet...

You may want to check to see if the beam directions are adjusted correctly.  If you put yourself behind the wheel in the cars of the oncoming traffic, especially if they are elderly,  it could potentially be an accident waiting to happen when someone looses their ability to see everything on the road ahead of them and gets partially blinded because the car coming at them has bright lights pointing at them.
I gotta admit for myself that even at age 50 I can't take that kind the brightness on two lane roads as well as I used to and have to move my focus more to the side of the road when I get someone with very bright lights coming at me.  I can't stand those really bright almost blue headlights and more so when their fog lights are on too.  When behind me and pointing up making like I got floodlights hooked in the back glass, I start to feel the road rage creeping up .  Ok enough of the rant  , and meant to be just a general comment to throw out there but point was that while it's great to see brighter and further make sure the other guy can too    

[roger01]

heres  an update of my headlight relay harness

[roger01]

now of coarse ive got it all hooked up and it doesnt work ....ther is a draw at the amp guage but no headlight can someone verify that what i have done is correct
    ive taken the original wire off the high beam selector and plugged it into the relay(orange)
    then i took a fresh wire and plugged it into the dimmer on the floor and back into the relay(red)

[roger01]

did this both with hgih beam of dimmer on floor and lowbeam of dimmer on floor
    have good ground,and have power at new 12 v wire to alt terminal .....why?

[oldcarnut]

Here's what I have I hope I explained it right without pictures. I think you have the TO/From dimmer backwards

From the dimmer  (70 RR)
New made Purple/white tracer to 86 1st Relay
New made Red to 86 2nd Relay

From the Relay
1st Relay 85 to Ground
30 to Power
87 to original dimmer Purple/White Tracer for light

2nd Relay 85 to Ground
30 to Power
87 to original dimmer Red for light

[roger01]

so 87 plugs to dimmer switch on floor one for hi gh  and one for low
   in picture ,the circled blue to dimmer on floor

[oldcarnut]

so 87 plugs to dimmer switch on floor one for hi gh  and one for low
   in picture ,the circled blue to dimmer on floor

Nope, 87 plugs into the relay going to the light.  That would be the wire that originally connected to the dimmer.  You just moved it.

[roger01]

87   
is  the pin on the relay ....so where does it connect too

[oldcarnut]

Like this.  The new harness you made up goes from the dimmer to the relay.  I can't remember at the moment whether the purple is low or high so my pic coloring may be off but the wires run the same.  This how I did it so not to cut the original wires

[oldcarnut]

edited

[roger01]

thanks for hanging in there for me i had the original dimmer wire plugging into   pin 86 ....i switched the 2 and now works fine
     i dont know why this always happens ,, i can double check till im blue in the face and i still get it wrong ,HATE ELECTRICAL
    thanks again

[roger01]

ok i let it run for about 20 mins with lights on ,,,everything seems fine
        headlight switch stays cool
        the new relay does warm up as the original dimmer switch wire does aswell ,but im pretty sure a little heat is normal
         isnt it 

[NHCharger]

I did this to my 72 a few years ago. Today I just did my 71 and of course there is a problem.
First off I like the idea of mounting it under the dash out of the elements. After searching for a good spot i made a custom bracket for the relays and attached it to two of the bolts that hold the brake assembly to the fire wall, worked out fine except for the following.
When the high beams are on everything is fine. If the low beams are on the lights come on as soon as I turn the key to the on and run position. This will happen with the headlight switch in the off position. As soon as i hit the high's the lights go off (when the switch is in the off position). The light work great otherwise. I triple checked all the wiring, I'm wondering if it could be my floor switch?

[oldcarnut]

This is more Nacho's field but I would have thought that you shouldn't be getting any power to the floor switch to run either lights until the headlight switch is turned on (key on or off).  Seems like your getting power to the lights from some other place than the light switch or maybe the light switch is going bad and getting power bypassed.  Roger01 glad it worked out for ya. 

[NHCharger]

It doesn't do it when I have the wiring run the standard way. Maybe a problem with one of the relays. I suppose i could reverse the relays and see if the problem happens with the high beams instaed, that would tell me it's the relay.

[Nacho-RT74]

now of coarse ive got it all hooked up and it doesnt work ....ther is a draw at the amp guage but no headlight can someone verify that what i have done is correct
    ive taken the original wire off the high beam selector and plugged it into the relay(orange)
    then i took a fresh wire and plugged it into the dimmer on the floor and back into the relay(red)

the original wire ( red and purple ) running to dimmer is plugged into an OUTPUT from dimmer.... Green wire is what is the only input to dimmer what is just a selector. So you need to get this dimmer cavity into the relay being the trigger input ( 86 ) to the relay with a fresh wire...

The wire coming in to the dimmer that you removed from dimmer ( purple and red ) is the wire running to forward harness, so this wire is the one what will plug into the 87 terminal at relay, what is the RELAY OUTPUT to feed the headlights already relay powered.

[Nacho-RT74]

I did this to my 72 a few years ago. Today I just did my 71 and of course there is a problem.
First off I like the idea of mounting it under the dash out of the elements. After searching for a good spot i made a custom bracket for the relays and attached it to two of the bolts that hold the brake assembly to the fire wall, worked out fine except for the following.
When the high beams are on everything is fine. If the low beams are on the lights come on as soon as I turn the key to the on and run position. This will happen with the headlight switch in the off position. As soon as i hit the high's the lights go off (when the switch is in the off position). The light work great otherwise. I triple checked all the wiring, I'm wondering if it could be my floor switch?

mmmm... it shouldn't be related with ign swith on any form.

where did you take the power from to the 30 terminal ?

just revising...

85 is ground

30 is constant POWERED source ( batt/alt... alt to keep the correct amm reading. Amm stud on alt side works if you already have charging wires upgraded )

86 is the trigger coming out from dimmer ( red and violet ), being the FRESH wire coming from dimmer if you are not cutting this wire and just relocating terminals.

87 must be the wire ORIGINALLY COMING FROM dimmer, going inside the underdash harness to get the bulkhead and feed the fronts.

[myk]

ok i let it run for about 20 mins with lights on ,,,everything seems fine
        headlight switch stays cool
        the new relay does warm up as the original dimmer switch wire does aswell ,but im pretty sure a little heat is normal
         isnt it 

So how are your lights performing?  What about the electrical/charging system?

[2Gunz]

Im going to add a few things that might help.


Below is a diagram of a relay used in a similar scenario.
While not an exact diagram of our situation its a good reference point of  its general use and operation.






Below is a Video about relays.

The "5th" connector talked about in the video is the "87A" connection (which you might have or not have on your relay).
Its useless in this application, and should be forgotten about and have nothing connected to it.
For the curious....   It will provide power from the "30" connection (battery in our case) when the "86" connection does NOT have power.

The "HHO cell"  icon in the video is the headlight in our case.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46nlei-2e4k


Hope this helps.

[jlatessa]

Where does the voltage regulator fit into this schematic?
An un-regulated alt can put out 15+ volts, what does this do to the life of a 12V bulb??

Also, doesn't that high of a un-regulated voltage going to the battery cause problems?

Thanks