advice on headlight harness installation?

[97tbird]

Hi all,

I,m thinking of getting a headlight wiring harness to get some more light out of my oem system. But since I haven't done any mechnaical stuff myself, I need some very basic wiring/connection advice before buying it.

The headlight harnesses I've been looking at from painlesswiring.com and suvlights.com all have the same basic setup.

My qusetion is:
The harness has a "power"(red) wire which shoul be connected to the (+)battery terminal. This wire has a split and TWO ring type connectors at the end.
How do i connect these TWO ring connectors to my (+) battery terminal?
I mean the (+) terminal already has a wire connected to it!
And do I connect both these rings to the same terminal? I guess I have to...but How exactly?

(it's the same with the wires that have to go to the (-) terminal OR ground: a split at the end, and TWO ring connectors...)

You can take a look at the harness here:
http://www.suvlights.com
click on "headlight wire harness" on the menu and then you'll see 2 harnesses; the one on the bottom is the one for 9007 bulb-setup. If you scroll down further on the dsame page, there's a link to "general installation instuctions", but the instructions don't explain how to "make" the connections.

Thank you, guys. I much appreciate your help.

 

[97tbird]

bump
anyone?

 

[94MaxGXE]

Simple, take the nut off the + batt term, slip the two O-ring connectors on the bolt, put the nut back on , and tighten. {I looked at the instructions, they have a seperate circuit, with relay, for each headlamp.}

Why do you want to do this? Are you also installing higher wattage bulbs? Most bulbs are 65w or so.......Stock wireing should handle that......

 

[97tbird]

quote:

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Originally posted by 94MaxGXE:
Simple, take the nut off the + batt term, slip the two O-ring connectors on the bolt, put the nut back on , and tighten. {I looked at the instructions, they have a seperate circuit, with relay, for each headlamp.}

Why do you want to do this? Are you also installing higher wattage bulbs? Most bulbs are 65w or so.......Stock wireing should handle that......

---

Thanks a lot...

Can I put the 2 Rings next to each other(is it ok if they touch?) or:
do I put them on either side of the nut?(one on the bolt-side and the other on side of the bolt-head?)

The thing is(this is what I've learned from research): with most oem headlight circuits running thru the headlight on/off switch, there is s huge volatge drop(long, thin wiring: huge resistance!), so the bulbs are NOT operating on the full voltage from the battery; they're operating at about 11 volts! which means the bulbs are not putting out the 65/55 watts, they're putting out about 40/45 watts instead(because of this even if you're using high watt bulbs, they're being starved, so it won't help). With a headlight relay system the bulbs get current directly from the battery, so no voltage drop; bulb operate sat full voltage, and put out the max power they have; so no need for expensive bulbs really...oem/better with same wattage at full power is enough.

Here's where I got all this:
http://www.danielsternlighting.com
go to "tech" and there's a section explaining how/why this happens..i think the topic is "Why and how to upgrade your lighting circuit". click on that, and you'll see the explanation.

[ December 10, 2004, 11:45 AM: Message edited by: 97tbird ]

 

[ChrisW]

quote:

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Originally posted by 94MaxGXE:
Simple, take the nut off the + batt term, slip the two O-ring connectors on the bolt, put the nut back on , and tighten. {I looked at the instructions, they have a seperate circuit, with relay, for each headlamp.}

Why do you want to do this? Are you also installing higher wattage bulbs? Most bulbs are 65w or so.......Stock wireing should handle that......

---

A harness allows the bulb to draw power directly from the battery, about 13.8 volts to be more exact. Stock wiring usually does not put out this much voltage, so a harness would make the bulbs brighter.

 

[brianl703]

quote:

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Originally posted by 94MaxGXE:
Why do you want to do this?

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In the case of my 1988 Mustang 5.0, this would be a pretty easy way to get around the problem of the headlights flashing (thermal breaker in the headlight switch turning on/off) due to using the foglights because someone specified a 14 gauge wire when they should've specified a 12 gauge wire.

The usual fix is to wire the foglights to a relay.

But why do that? Why not wire the headlights to a relay instead? You use the headlights more often than the foglights.