Howdy folks i made up the wiring harness for and installed the relays following the instructions in Jim Lanes write up. I checked and rechecked them to his and was fairly certain everything was wired correctly till this afternoon. I have a problem with them and it has been scince i installed em. My low beams wont turn off when i do so with the switch unless i disconnect the power lead for the relays from the battery. When i do that i hear the low beam relay click and the lights go off. Other than that highbeams and all work great. Its almost like something is telling that lowbeam relay to keep drawing power even after i turn em off. I thought maybe a bad relay but now im wondering if I wired something screwy. I checked Voltage coming from the factory pigtail i used for signal and it loses voltage as it should when i hit the switch. Any Ideas? I tried swappin that relay and it didnt fix it. If anyone has a few minutes of guidance I would appreciate it Thankyou.

 

Well, the relay is a dumb device. It is either open or closed (depending on the unit in question) based on whether or not it has power. If you used a relay that is too small to switch the load, it could be that power is jumping across the relay holding it open.

It could also be a bad switch in the cab. Use a 12 V tester light on the plug of the relay (without knowing just how you haver this wired up I cannot say which side, but you want the lead throwing the relay and then a ground, most likely the body) coming from the cab switch and make sure the cab switch is working properly. You should be able to turn the tester on and off with the cab switch, I would think. If the tester light stays on, then your cab switch (or something between the tester and the cab switch) is keeping the relay energized.

Both relays could be bad. Are you sure one of them is a good relay? If you take the relay off and use a test lead to go direct to the battery, does it click on and off when you apply voltage? If so, the relay is good. If not, the relay is bad - toss it.

 

I used jim lanes directions in his write up here
https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...d.php?t=176263
im assuming i would hook this jumper the the terminal where my signal wire runs to? If you take a look at his schematics I'm running the 3 relay setup. I'm assumin that the relay or some wiring on the lowbeam relay is buggered. I swapped the relays around and tried a new relay and nothing, so that almost certainly leads me to believe something is wired wrong.

 

dunno if that will help because his schematic is for only 2 relays but you get the idea by looking at some of his pics.

 

When the cows get out, you have to walk the fence.

Same with your situation.

Carefully scrutinize your wiring and the problem will show itself.


Did you use "pigtails" on the relays, or just plug the wires on with female spades ??

 

I just used the good wire all the way to the relays with female spades. Couldnt find any pigtails with decent Ga. wire. The relays i orderd off the internet came with pigtails that were suppose to be 12Ga. but when they came in i realized they were mayyyybe 14ga.

 

From reading your situation, it is probable that you have one of the HOT wires where a switch-wire should be.


I bought a bunch of empty relay sockets, along with a couple bags of empty terminals that lock inside the sockets, such that I can use whichever gauge of wire I so choose, plus the wire can be full length.

I think I got this stuff from WAYTEK WIRE.


Before that, I had been using one of those eye-glass screw-drivers to release the wires/terminals from a pre-wired socket/pigtail, and then carefully un-crimping the terminals, such that I could upgrade the wire sizes; this was quite the tedious operation and I have scars to show for it.

 

92GhostRyder
Sorry I did not get back to you.

If you have connected the relays as in the schematic Term#86 of the Low Beam Relay will have one wire go the LOW BEAM connection of the trucks headlight socket.

If you are using the 3rd. relay for the full power circuit the wire from Term.#86 on the LOW Beam Relay will also go to Term.#87 on the 3rd. relay.

If you had connected it to Term.#87a the relay will remain latched ON all the time.

Please check this connection.

To check this you can disconnect the wire at the 3rd relay from Term.#87 then everything should work properly except for the LOW/HIGH together.

Instead of adding the 3rd relay for the High and Low beams to come on together use a 4 amp diode and connect the end with the BAND to Term.#86 of the Low Beam Relay and the other lead to Term.#86 of the High Beam Relay.

This will take the place of the 3rd. relay; you can either install this diode at the headlight socket or in the female terminals that connect to Term.#86 of both relays.

Please let me know if this works.
Jim

 

Good quality stuff?

 

http://order.waytekwire.com/products/M37/240/300/750/1

It looks good.

Time will tell.

 

Wello I rechecked that connection Jim and none of the relays are connected at 87a per your directions in the write up. Term 86 on the Low beam relay is connected to the headlight socket and jumped to Term 87 on the 3rd relay. I did disconnect the jumper from Tem 87 on relay 3 and everything works fine now what would cause that considering everything was hooked up right? Will that cause high and lows to be on even when just my lows are on? I got a taste of the highs and lows together on a long dark country road and MANNNNNNN is that lighting addicting.

 

92GhostRyder

This really has me puzzled, I have gone over the setup time after time and it should work.
So if you disconnect Term.#87 from the 3rd. relay it will work ok is this correct?

With the 3rd. relay out of the circuit and you pull your headlight switch on do the Low beam lamps come on ok?

And then same with the High beams when you pull back on the dimmer switch, they work?

At this point your Low beams will NOT come on in conjunction with your High beams.

With the Low beams on pull back on the stalk to the "Flash" position to just before it goes into High beam, at this point both the Low and High beams should be on at the same time.

I would recommend for you to use the diode to trigger the relay and omit the 3rd. relay all together.

Here I will show you 2 different ways you can install the diode that will take the place of the 3rd. relay.

In this picture the diode can be constructed into the relay end of the harness.

The female spade connectors go Term.#86 of both the Low and High beam relays.



In this picture the leads for the diode are included with the trigger wires at the headlamp socket. In both cases the side with the Red wire goes to the High beam circuit.



Anyone that does this modification in the future I would recommend this to cut down on mechanical parts.

Is there any way you could get a close-up picture of your relays showing the associated wiring?

I could give you my e-mail if you do not have a way to host them; I would really like to see why it would not work.

BTW what is the PN# of the relays you used? 0-332-xxx-xxx

Your truck does not have DRL’s does it?
Jim

 

Nope sure does Not have daytime running lights, I reckon i'll take your idea about the diode I'd like to eliminate some of the underhood clutter anyhow. Everything works exactly like it should, as it did before I started the project. When I pull Term 87 off the 3rd relay, low beams, high beams, and both together when i pull the dimmer switch back just before it engages the High beams soley.

 

Hey ghost did you get some odd relays ? iv seen a few that numbers on them was differant than the bosch i use.

 

Nah i got 30/40 amp relays by borg warner. I've always had good luck with them and we carry em at the store. The only thing i could seem to find online was cheap no-name bosch imitators at decent prices.