help rewiring headlights on ke35

[naten]

hey guys,

Ive been giving rob a hand rewiring the stock headlights on his corolla (ke35) and i need some help with some strange behaviour of the electrics.

Basically im replacing the cars relay and wiring with my own relays and wiring. The relay setup works fine (for high and low beam).

For the input into the relay setup i am using the two postive leads that used to go into the old head light (so 1 postive for low beam and 1 postive for high beam when turned on)

Heres where the weird stuff starts:
Unless i have the drivers side headlight plugged into the car, the cars electrics dont output the normal voltages etc to the globes plug.

for EG.
The H4 plugs has 3 wires on it. A ground, a postive for low beam and a postive for high beam. Which work fine when the globe is in there.

Take the globe out and test it with a multi meter. The ground turns in to the two postives (going +12 for high and low beam) and the two postives do nothing.

Which makes it really hard simply use the cars existing electrics to switch the new headlights!

Does anyone have any suggestions? Im stumped and its something that ive never come across.
thanks
nathan

[BradW]

The headlights actually supply a positive to the lights and switch the earth through the dipper switch.

I would take the 3 wires from the headlight switch. Join the common (positive) to the 85 of each relay (high and low beam relays) and join the other 2 wires to the 86 of each relay respectively.

If you need a diagram for the KE55, I have one on my web page. Click on the link in my sig. If you want a high res version just PM me and I'll email it to you.

[rob]

nathan its a KE35 tard... but yeah help plz

EDIT: hey brad one of the wiring diags isnt uploaded fully

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~bradw/W...Wiring%202.jpg

[naten]

i know what your saying but whats on the car doesnt react like that

When the globe is it, it works as normal. Has one earth and the positives are switched. Its when the globe it taken out that it does work as normal.

When the globe is out there are not two different wires that go positive (or negative) to switch the lights. Hence i cant feed that to a relay.

Is there any such thing as a load triggered relay?

[BradW]

Is this with one globe disconnected or both. You need to check it with both globes diconnected as you will get a backfeed from the globe that is connected.

[rob]

its with 1 H4 wired and connected (passenger side) and one sealed beam connected (drivers) that all this happens

[BradW]

So is the H4 wired through the relay or with standard wiring. Disconnect both lights and check for power and earth at one headlight plug and see what you get.

BTW I reloaded my web pages. I'm using a new FTP program and don't really know what I'm doing with it yet .

[qikdraw]

Sounds like your car operates on a positive ground setup if this is the case u need to make up your own wiring loom with relays and fuses and bypass the factory setup like I did with my RT132.

[Hiro]

nathan its a KE35 tard... but yeah help plz

EDIT: hey brad one of the wiring diags isnt uploaded fully

http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~bradw/Wiring%20Diagrams/KE30,%2035%20&%2036%20Wiring%202.jpg

The later KE55 models (ie the square headlight models) had replaceable H4 headlights as opposed to the earlier sealed beams, so I guess you should be wiring it up according to 55 diagrams, not 30/35. Of course, this would mean having 2 H4s in there, as opposed to one H4 and one sealed

[naten]

Bradw: as posted above the plug with a globe plugged in has a negative a postive for low beam and a postive for high beam.

When the globe is removed the ground becomes postive at both low and high beam.

Qikdraw: if that is the case where would i attach the relay inputs to? Its really odd that it works fine when the globe is in there but changes once the globe is removed.

here is a dodgy pic of the setup. All i need is to feed the input wires with postive inputs from the car to switch them on and off. But thats the problem the car doesnt behave normally once you take out the old globe.
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/rsturzen/head.jpg

Oh btw the car has H4 plugs on it already, dont know if they are factory or not. What rob said before doesnt matter as both the old sealed beam and new globes are H4

[BradW]

What are you checking the power with, a multimeter or a test light? As I said before, check the power with both headlights unplugged.

[naten]

Multimeter.

What i posted above is with both headlights out. This happens!

Bradw: as posted above the plug with a globe plugged in has a negative a postive for low beam and a postive for high beam.

When the globe is removed the ground becomes postive at both low and high beam.

[BradW]

Try checking it with a test light. A multimeter can give confusing readings when checking things like this.

[The Witzl]

naten,

you need to change the way you are wiring up the system. As Brad mentioned before, the headlights work by having one wire 12V+ all the time, and the other two switch to earth to illuminate either the high or the low beam.

See this thread for some other info: http://www.toymods.net/forums/showthread.php?t=4873


In actual fact, there is only ONE headlight relay on a KE35. This provides the 12V+ power to the headlights, and then the headlight stalk acts as the ground switch for low beam and high beam (dimmer switch).

Here is what i recommend doing:

[naten]

ok sweet thanks man it all makes sense now

i can just change the way the relays are already setup, i will make them switch on a negative input instead of a positive input.

+rep for ur help man
thanks!