Fog Lights Question

97gpx · Post by **97gpx** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 12:48 am

I found out on the weekend that my "Fog lights" we actually my parkers and that my real foglights were not working. So I went straight to the source, the foglight switch. Last night I pulled it to pieces cleaned it, made sure that it had enough grease on it etc and cleaned the terminals. I then tested it to make sure that it work with the multimeter and woo hoo, it works.

Tonight I figure now that I have my foglights back, I should probably protect the switch from, all the power of the fogs by putting in a relay. So search the forum found a couple of helpful post and followed the directions. However to no avail.

I have tried to hook up the relay the following way and all that I get are my parkers.

so I take the following wires from the back of the switch and hook them up to the relay
85 red w/silver band black strip(+)
86 red w/silver band(-)
relay.
Then I cut into the loom and run a wire from the following wires below to the relay
30 green/white strip(+)
87 black/yellow strip(-)

Then I think wow that was a 10 minute job easy. Push the switch and I get parkers and that is it. Try reversing the 85 and 86 connections, still nothing. Try all different permutations of switching wires aronds and I still get jack. Put all the wires back into the switch push the switch i have fogs, angels and parkers.

When I touch the two wires together for the fogs everything comes on.

All I want to see is my fogs and my new angel lights

which are running off the fog light power.

Storm · Post by **Storm** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 12:53 am

From your description it sound like you have taken the wires from the fog out of the switch, but then not wired your relay back up to the switch.

The two bottom wires (cant remember the colours) will need to be wired up to a live and then the relay, so that when you push the switch it activates the relay and the relay activates the fogs.

This is probably what you have done anyway but from your description it sounded like you had missed out the switch in the equasion.

HTH

97gpx · Post by **97gpx** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 3:16 pm

Sorry you will have to excuse my electric ignorance.

With the wires that I have spliced into should that not activate the relay at the same time as the parkers come on?

Either that do I have to splice into the wires that power the parkers and put them on to the relay at 30 and 87?

Sorry, I am a little new to this, and it is doin my head in

Sparhawk · Post by **Sparhawk** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 8:39 pm

When I finish re-installing all my software on this PC (I just got a new HDD and installed Windows) Ill draw you a pic of how to wire it up.

edit : This is taking longer than expected. Ill draw it up tomoz.

eThix · Post by **eThix** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 12:18 am

Can you post the pic up here so i can see it

, i'm a total noob to the fog lights with relays and i would like to put a relay in

97gpx · Post by **97gpx** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 2:56 am

Thanks for the offer Steve, I got stubborn though and tackled it again tonight. And I finally have it working. I will post photos on the weekend of how to do it, as I took them as I went along

Sparhawk · Post by **Sparhawk** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 7:42 pm

OK, np. For anyone interested in the way to wire it up I drew some pics.

Original wiring :

With the relay :

97gpx · Post by **97gpx** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 9:27 pm

Okay here we go I have finally got everything working.

After I had pulled apart the dash and got access to the fog light switch. I pulled apart the fog light switch and this is what I had.

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/kevinsmith8 ... 6578"><img src="http://lh4.google.com/image/kevinsmith8 ... 20copy.jpg" /></a>
<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/kevinsmith8 ... 8482"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/image/kevinsmith8 ... 20copy.jpg" /></a>

All I done with these was clean the terminals. There was no signs of the switch being burn out so I was okay to use it again. Eventually got the switch back togther and tested it with a multimeter to make sure that it was completing the circuit etc.

Once I clean the switch, I prepared the loom for wiring in a relay
<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/kevinsmith8 ... 0386"><img src="http://lh6.google.com/image/kevinsmith8 ... 20copy.jpg" /></a>

The red wires give a reading of 12v and when joined together made the fog lights come on
The green wires turned on the parkers and measured 12v
The two wires in the middle measure 0v when the switch is not pressed. When pressed it measures 12v

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/kevinsmith8 ... 9602"><img src="http://lh6.google.com/image/kevinsmith8 ... 20copy.jpg" /></a>

With this photo you can see I have taken the wires for the fog lights and wired them into 30 and 87 on my relay. I then spliced into the middle two wires and connected them to 85 and 86. This way when the switch is pushed it turns on the electro-magnet and closes the circuit for the fog lights.

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/kevinsmith8 ... 4994"><img src="http://lh4.google.com/image/kevinsmith8 ... 20copy.jpg" /></a>
Just a photo of the wiring harness for the relay

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/kevinsmith8 ... 8802"><img src="http://lh6.google.com/image/kevinsmith8 ... 20copy.jpg" /></a>
As you can see, I wasn't too confident soldering on to the loom, and I wanted a better connection rather than electrical taping the wires together. To get the white thingmys on to the middle wires I just let them out of the connector and slipped them over the crimps.

I tested everything, then I put everything back into the dash. I had to push the relay, a little bit to get it behind the dash properly. I found that if i didn't push the relay back into small gap then the switch on the dash would go in, but not come back out.

Then presto.
We have fog lights and angel lights, both powered off the fog light switch.
<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/kevinsmith8 ... 0706"><img src="http://lh5.google.com/image/kevinsmith8 ... 20copy.jpg" /></a>
And just another one of the angel eyes only
<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/kevinsmith8 ... 9906"><img src="http://lh5.google.com/image/kevinsmith8 ... GP2318.JPG" /></a>

Any questions let me know

Sparhawk · Post by **Sparhawk** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 10:05 pm

nice work mate. looks good

Post by **Bennoz** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 12:12 pm

Superb work! Would anyone be adverse to me turning this into a DIY?

Sparhawk · Post by **Sparhawk** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 7:15 pm

Bennoz wrote:Superb work! Would anyone be adverse to me turning this into a DIY?

Good Call Boss...

SchumieFan · Post by **SchumieFan** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:06 pm

i think its just a fake post just to show off his angels

97gpx · Post by **97gpx** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:49 pm

sounds like someone is jealous

Sparhawk · Post by **Sparhawk** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 8:00 pm

Hmmm. I wired a relay to my foglights today. I found a few incorrect assumptions on your switch wiring. Ill draw up what I mean and post it when I do, but to cut a long story short, If you wire it up the way you explained, your fog lights will come on like parkers. No matter what lights you select (parkers, low beam, or high beam) your foggies will be on.

Sparhawk · Post by **Sparhawk** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 9:18 pm

OK, let me see if I can explain.

Here is the Fog light switch circuit from the wiring manual :

The switch is half way down on the right hand side.
Pins 1-3 is the switch we need to replace with a relay, cos this is where all the current is going thru the switch.
Pins 4-5 is where you have wired the coil of your relay. This is normally 0v until you switch the lights on, so you CAN wire your relay here, but if you follow this back, you will notice this will go to 12v whenever you switch ANY of your lights on, as it is part of your general dash illumination circuit.
The other part of the foglight switch is there to do just that. It turns on your dash illumination, number plate lights, parkers etc. same as your steering column light switch (centre left of this diagram)

Did that make sense ?

Anyway, if your going to wire a relay into your fog light switch, I recommend finding a permanent 12v source (not a switched one) from your fuse box or something, and wiring that in thru the relay coil and pins 1-3 of the fog light switch.