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I had to do some troubleshooting on my headlights the other day, and figured out how to do something I wanted to do for a while, which is make the low beams stay on when you switch to high beams. It's actually far simpler than I thought it would be. A little background:
First of all, this only applies to US spec cars, all others should be skeptical. (RH drive, Daytime running lights (sorry canadians), German aimable lights, etc all have different circuitry) Essentially, I drive a 1990 US spec, so if that is not what you have, use appropriate caution. All info in this writeup pertains to the relay box in front left of the engine bay. The + voltage for the headlights is supplied to a pair of L & R relays which are energized closed when you turn on the headlight switch. This supplies +12V to both the high and low beam bulbs. The grounds for these bulbs then return to ground through the high/low relay. This relay provides the ground (both L & R) for either High or Low beams. You can verify this on your car by removing the High/Low relay, turning on the headlight switch, and shorting pin 4 or pin 5 of the relay socket to ground. Shorting one will turn on the low beams, and shorting the other will turn on the high beams. By the way, making a nice 80 watt spark in the engine bay is not a good idea if you have a fuel leak. Now, to the mod:
Remove the two screws mounting the relay panel and flip it up as best you can. There is not a lot of room to work here, and you may have to cut the harness back quite a bit to be able to add the splice. Find the wire that comes off of the low beam pin of the relay socket. This should be pin 4, and on my car it was a green wire with a yellow stripe. Splice a jumper wire onto this wire with a grounding lug on the other end. I left the wire to the socket intact to provide that additional backup if there is a problem. Mount the ground lug to a good ground. I liked the inboard mounting bolt for the relay panel, since it had a metal plate to make good contact with. That's it! Now, the system should act as usual, except the low beams will not turn off when you switch to high beams. One last disclaimer, I do not know if the circuitry is able to handle the current of both low and high beams at the same time, since this could nearly double the current draw on portions of the circuit. Let me know if you have any problems. ~Scott
email:
scottwerkz at yahoo
www.panamacityz.net
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