More Fog Light Wiring Questions

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OK Ive got the fogs wired on my tercel without a relay. Now Im blowing fuses left and right. Cant even re-connect the battery without blowing the fuse. Will a relay help?


I mounted the Hella Optilux 1500 driving lights in the factory foglight spots on my Tundra. Ive got them wired to the relay and grounded. The relay is also grounded. The red wire to the positive battery is easy. Now the fourth wire (yellow) is supposed to go to the switch. Can I use this one (split it off) to power the switch too? Im supposed to run a wire from the low beams to the switch to power it, but I want to be able to run the foglights with the brights on too if needed. Where can I tap a 12V source to power the switch? Run a second wire (with inline fuse) off of the battery?

Later on Ill be running another set of wires for the Hella 500's Im mounting on the grill guard. I will need power for that switch too. I have 2 switches from pepboys with LED indicators, one blue, one green. Can I just split power off of whatever 12V source I use to power the first source and run both switches?
 
quote:

Originally posted by FL-400S:
OK Ive got the fogs wired on my tercel without a relay. Now Im blowing fuses left and right. Cant even re-connect the battery without blowing the fuse. Will a relay help?

Is it blowing a fuse that you added, or a fuse that's in the vehicle's fusebox?

If the latter--I would not recommend running a load like foglights off of any factory wiring unless you are 100% sure that it can support the load. (Unless you get a wiring diagram and carefully study it, you can't be sure.)

The better thing to do is use a relay and draw power for the foglights directly from the battery. The relay's coil can be wired to whatever switch you currently (no pun intended) have the foglights connected to.
 
No it blows the fuse in-line from battery to switch. The system is not really connected to the car other than the battery and a couple of ground wires.
 
Im using a 250V 15A fuse like it came with. I think Im just gonna rewire it with a relay and see if that works.
 
Using the relay likely won't make any difference. The fuse blowing problem isn't due to anything that a relay would fix.

Either:

1)The 15 amp fuse isn't sufficient

2)The socket, the bulb or the wiring is shorted out.

Try removing the bulbs from the foglight sockets and check if the fuse still blows. If it doesn't, put one of the bulbs back and check again. If it still doesn't, put the other bulb back and check again. If it now blows, you have either a problem of a bad bulb that's shorted internally or the fuse isn't big enough for both bulbs.
 
offtopic.gif

Hey...you guys with foglights. Please don't run them when there's no fog, it's clear and the visibility is like 20,000 parsecs. Especially you guys with tall Pickups/SUVs where your foglights are almost level with a cars normal headlights.

If you weren't aware, all lights, no matter how focused will emit a certain amount of glare. You might think it looks cool, but your vanity is blinding the heck out of other drivers on the road.

I have foglights, but I only use them when there's fog to deal with. Thanks in advance.
 
I wanna use them on the back country roads with no street lights.

I was thinking, can I tap the tail light 12V source from the fusebox to power the switches? How do I do it? It seems this way the lights would only work if the tail/parking lights were on, which is what I want! Would this work?
 
You can tap the parking light feed under the hood for the + side of the relay coils and then instead of grounding them there, run that wire into the passenger compartment to a switch then to ground. That'd be minimal wiring hassle.
 
quote:

Originally posted by eljefino:
You can tap the parking light feed under the hood for the + side of the relay coils and then instead of grounding them there, run that wire into the passenger compartment to a switch then to ground. That'd be minimal wiring hassle.

I wonder if I can tap the tail light near the fusebox in the cab. I think Ive heard this done before, but I dont know how. All I need it to do is power 2 LEDs for the 2 switches.

My headlights should be aimed fine. The truck is 1.5 years old. The terc is 10 year old but I know my dad didnt turn the wrong screws when changing them.
 
quote:

Originally posted by FL-400S:
I wanna use them on the back country roads with no street lights.

If you think your headlights suck, take them in to be aimed, sometimes it can make a big difference for only $15.
 
quote:

Originally posted by FL-400S:
My headlights should be aimed fine. The truck is 1.5 years old. The terc is 10 year old but I know my dad didnt turn the wrong screws when changing them.

Should be but you don't know for sure and a lot of cars on the road (for whatever reason) have incorrect aim.
 
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