| Author |
Message |
kdnguyen61
Samba Member
Joined: June 14, 2019
Posts: 111
Location: Houston, Texas
|
 Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2025 9:25 am Post subject: 1972 Ghia LED Headlights |
 |
|
Dear Members,
I have a 1972 Karmann Ghia and I thought to try LED headlights for the car to see better at nights. The LED headlights came with three prongs connection so it should be plug and play with original plug. However after I installed the LED headlights, they both only stayed on high beams. I cannot get them to work on low beams. Then I took the LED headlights off and manually tested them with power/ground straight from the battery to each terminals and they worked perfectly. My original halogen headlights work like normal with low/high beams. I am really puzzle on why the LED headlights don't work. Seller suggested me to try with H4 plug connection manually wiring to the original car plug. Since the adapter is only $6, I will give it a try. Has any member ran into this kind of problem? Appreciate any advice. Thank you. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
OTO X58
Samba Member
Joined: March 27, 2004
Posts: 3253
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2025 9:37 am Post subject: Re: 1972 Ghia LED Headlights |
|
|
To convert to H4, you need to swap the ground and low beam wire.
If you don’t do this, your high beam won’t have a ground so it will not work.
Also, you run the risk of damaging the LED bulb because it’s grounded incorrectly.
You can fix this by de-pinning the wires in your headlight connector and moving them to the new location. Or you can use an adapter harness, as long as it’ll fit inside the bucket.
_________________
RIP HBB
Autocrossing the 58 Rag
60 DoubleDoor
57 Gazelle Beige Ghia
66 Kombi - Family project |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kdnguyen61
Samba Member
Joined: June 14, 2019
Posts: 111
Location: Houston, Texas
|
| Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2026 7:17 pm Post subject: Re: 1972 Ghia LED Headlights |
|
|
Hi OTO X58,
Thank you for the information. I have tried what you suggested but I was able to only fix the passenger light but the driver side wouldn't go to low beam. It stuck on high beam. I have switched to many patterns and give up for now.
Need to ask you more about the signal and daylight running on these LED lights. Have you tried to hook them up? I tried to run the white cable connection from signal bulb to the yellow connection of the LED light and it didn't work. I am thinking to run any hot wire when ignition on to the daylight connection to see it works or not.
Appreciate your help further on this. Thank you. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
OTO X58
Samba Member
Joined: March 27, 2004
Posts: 3253
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2026 4:06 pm Post subject: Re: 1972 Ghia LED Headlights |
|
|
| kdnguyen61 wrote: |
Hi OTO X58,
Thank you for the information. I have tried what you suggested but I was able to only fix the passenger light but the driver side wouldn't go to low beam. It stuck on high beam. I have switched to many patterns and give up for now.
Need to ask you more about the signal and daylight running on these LED lights. Have you tried to hook them up? I tried to run the white cable connection from signal bulb to the yellow connection of the LED light and it didn't work. I am thinking to run any hot wire when ignition on to the daylight connection to see it works or not.
Appreciate your help further on this. Thank you. |
Hopefully there's still a reversed connection somewhere that you've just overlooked. If not, then you may have unfortunately hurt the bulb by essentially swapping the power and ground before. Now that you have the passenger one working, try swapping the bulbs left to right. That will tell you if the problem is in the wiring or the bulb.
I'm not familiar with the daytime feature, but I would imagine that it probably uses the same ground wire as the main bulb. Like you said, if you wire it to a switched connection on the fuse box, that should make it come on with the key. But I don't know about the bulbs that you're using. Maybe it'd be wiser to wire it like a running light (the first position in the headlight switch).
_________________
RIP HBB
Autocrossing the 58 Rag
60 DoubleDoor
57 Gazelle Beige Ghia
66 Kombi - Family project |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
