Headlight Wiring Help Needed...

[BoostinBen]

Looking for a lil help here....

 

even better if anyone local who is familiar with the stock headlight wiring in a 510 wants to roll by the shop and lend me a hand.. there is a case of beer in it for you. :)

 

we have just about wired everything up from scratch in my dime... the only thing that is holding us back is the weird reverse wiried headlight circuit. Can anyone pass along an info about changing over the headlight circuit to a standard relayed setup? I see there looks like there is a couple good articles in the Dime Quarterly about it I think it was volume 1 issue 3? I was going to order the back isues but I was hoping to get it sorted before this weekend for the norcal meet.. Is there a way to set up the headlight circuit to run normally without the +12v always going to the lights and the hibeam switch grounding it out... although id like to use the hibeam switch if I can so not sure thats possible...... I dunno whats the best way to do this ??? :D kind of a dumb sounding post but just shows how lost I am on this one...

[banzai510(hainz)]

If nothing is wrong with it I would leave it.I think its a better system unless it grounds itself out(example someone runs a sheetmetal screw threw it .

Buy a H4 harness. This will plug in to the existing passenger side outer light plug(this will be now used as a trigger). This will trigger 2 new higher power amp relays.The new harness will by a Switchable power set up using the relays.

note hibeams wires are not modified and stay stock

 

read here

http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTricks/Headlights.shtml#OnLineOrdering

 

I know this was not the awnser you were looking for.

 

If you want switchable power? Im sure seombody has a drawing. I had one somewhere but cant find it right now

[DanielC]

A 510 has separate fuses for each side of the car. All the switching of the lights, on, off, high and low beams is done on the ground side of the headlights.

 

The following colors are from a wiring diagram, in a 1970-1971 Nissan factory service manual.

After the fuse block,

Power to the right side headlights is a red wire.

Power to the left side headlights is a red wire, with a blue stripe.

Power is applied to the common terminal on the headlights.

The low beam connection to the headlights is a red wire, with a black stripe, and goes to the headlight relay. Both sides are connected together, before going to the headlight relay.

The high beam connection is a red wire with a white stripe. The two right side headlights are tied together, and the two left side headlights are tied together, and then both sides of the car are tied together, and the red wire with a white stripe goes to the headlight relay.

The headlight relay has six terminals on it. Two are for the coil in the relay, one is the high beam terminal, one is the low beam terminal, and the other two are connected to red wires with a yellow stripe, and these are tied together.

This red wire with a yellow stripe then goes to the headlight switch.

After the headlight switch, power is then on a black wire that goes to a ground.

 

I have heard of two different places this black wire goes. One is back to the voltage regulator mounting screw, the other is to one of the screws mounting the bracket the holds the hood release cable.

[Unclejesse88]

I run the stock setup, with one modification. I added a power relay on the battery positive side ahead of the fuse box. I believe it is the red/yellow wire going into the fuse box that is lights on power from the switch. Disconnect this at the connector. Run the switch side to the relay coil, pin 85/86. The other relay coil pin 85/86 goes to ground. Then run fuse power from the battery or starter to pin 35, and run pin 87 to the red/yellow wire entering the fuse box. This simple setup will remove your headlamp switch from the actual headlamp circuit. This cuts current flow through the switch down the about 30mA. The rest of the headlamp circuit works normally, as I see no need to change the stock relay setup.

[DanielC]

I believe on a 510, the red wire with a yellow stripe is the connection from the dimming headlight relay, and the dash light switch, that GOES TO GROUND. On a 510, the red wire with a yellow stripe does not go to the fuse box.

 

The red wire with a yellow stripe does go to the fuse box on a 521.

 

You have to know how your stock wiring system works before you start to modify it.

[DanielC]

Here is a nice relay to use in headlight wiring. It has two 87 connectors on it, instead of a 87, and 87A. You can use the two connectors for two lights, one on each side, instead of having to splice two wires together. The relay is also rated at 40 amps on the contacts.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/KCC-3300/

Not a bad price either.

[BoostinBen]

oh right forgot to mention ... the only stock piece of my headlight circuit is the highbeam switch ... which is whats causing me grief .. everything else is wired up normally using a painless kit... I was hoping that I would not have to rewire the headlights to switch off of the ground... ..

[DanielC]

In order to help you out with this, I would have to know how the Painless headlight circuit is wired. Do not try to run headlight current through the stock dimmer switch. It cannot handle the current. All the stock column mounted headlight switch does is switch the ground on a relay coil.

 

A Datsun 521 headlight circuit works like this.

Fused power is applied through a dash mounted headlight switch to what would be pin 30 of a Bosch type relay, and to pin 86, one side of the relay coil.

Power then goes through pin 87A, the normally closed connection, and out to the low beam headlight, that have the common pin on the headlights grounded.

When you flip the dimmer switch on the column, it grounds pin 85 on the relay, and power for the headlights goes to pin 87 on the relay, and out to the high beams.