Headlight relay help

[vw donvieira]

I am lost here. I bought relays for the headlights to make things easier on the switch. They are the Jay Brown relays that are for vanagons. I am a little lost on what plugs into what. I can bring power from the battery to headlight switch but plugging in the "heavy" white and yellow into which wire and the light white and yellow has me lost. I have the floor mounted dimmer switch and 8 fuse type fuse block
I have uploaded the pics of teh relays and my fuse block.

Thanks, vwdon

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"No Give Up"

[sjbartnik]

The way I did it is to run a new heavy wire (10 gauge) from the battery direct to terminal 30 on the new relays. Be sure to use an inline fuse on the new wire. With that I bypassed the headlight switch entirely but did not have to change any wiring on the headlight switch.

So, for example:

New wire from battery -> inline fuse (if using 55/60w H4 halogen, 20A fuse should be sufficient assuming 12v) -> terminal 30 on new relays - use a piggyback push-on connector on one of the relays to jump from 30 on one relay to 30 on the other relay. Or I see your relays already have terminals in a plug, so maybe use a Y-connector to connect up the two red wires to 30 on the new relays.

OK so now you've got power to your headlights and that power is not running through the headlight switch.

You are going to use the output from your switch (or really, the output from your existing high beam changeover relay) to trip the new relays.
You don't say in your post what year your Ghia is but generally there is a relay that handles the switchover from low beams to high beams when you hit the lever. This relay normally carries the entire load of the headlights but we are going to use it to trip the new relays so the load on the headlight switch and changeover relay will be greatly reduced.

Coming off the changeover relay are two wires, one white from terminal F and one yellow from terminal 56a. The yellow is for the low beams, the white for the high beams.

Pull the yellow wire off the changeover relay. Connect it to terminal 87 on the new relay (whichever relay you have designated as the low beam relay).

Pull the white wire off the changeover relay. Connect it to terminal 87 on the new high beam relay.

Take the yellow wire that's connected to your new low beam relay terminal 86 and connect it to 56a on the changeover relay.

Take the white wire that's connected to your new high beam relay terminal 86 and connect it to terminal F on the changeover relay.

Find a good ground point to connect the two wires from terminal 85 on the new relays.

That's it.

So how it works:

1) pull headlight switch on.
2) This energizes changeover relay and 12v is sent out 56a
3) the 12v from 56a energizes your new low beam relay which closes and sends power from 30 (via your new wire) out 87, through the fuse box, and to the low beam headlights.
4) when you flip to high beam, the changeover relay stops putting 12v out on 56a and starts putting it out on F. This de-energizes your low beam relay and energizes your high beam relay which closes and sends power from 30 to 87 through the fuse box to your high beams.
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[vw donvieira]

I have a 1964 Ghia with the foot switch for the hi/low beam.

- I don't think that year has a relay for the headlights.

- That is where I am confused.

-I need an alternate route to run a wire from battery to front, there is no room to squeeze anything past the stock harness.
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"No Give Up"

[sjbartnik]

OK just took a look at the '61-'65 diagram here on the site. Yeah they did it a little differently than what I described but you can still make it work. I was assuming a later car. I'm assuming also that it's been converted to 12v?

So in the diagram, J2 should be your foot-operated dimmer switch. It does the same basic thing as the changeover relay did in later cars.

You have a white/black wire into the dimmer switch terminal 56 - this is your 12v into the switch from the headlight switch. 12v is output of the switch from either terminal 56b (yellow wire / low beam) or 56a (white wire / high beam) depending upon the position of the switch.

So you basically wire it up as I described above however use the foot switch in place of the changeover relay. Same concept except your foot switch will be what's triggering the new relays. Of course being that it's a foot switch you will likely have to lengthen some of the wires to make it work.

As for running your wire from the battery, I can't do much to help you there. You can either try and fish it in through the regular harness or just look around to see if there is another way.
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[sjbartnik]

I should say that, unless you are planning to run super bright lights (above 55w/60w) you can likely get away with the stock wiring. Just tap off where the big red wire comes into the fuse box and use that to run to 30 on your new relays.

But if you are looking to up the wattage on your headlights, you will definitely want to run new wire from the battery.
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1965 Volkswagen 1500 Variant S
2000 Kawasaki W650

[easy e]

I did basically like this... not sure if you have SPST relays though:

Here's another... maybe instead of running a new wire from battery... branch off existing fat hot wire... (I like the top pic/sketch better)

Here's another resource: http://www.type2.com/library/electris/newlight.htm
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aka: Evan
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[MMCCARTHY]

If I was wiring it I would interrupt the power wire to your foot switch . Usually there are four terminals on the relay, 2 are small, 2 large . The 2 small ones operate the relay and the 2 large are the heavy amp wires you are controlling. The terminals are ( Bosch ) 30, 85,86,87 that you will use. 30 would go to the new power supply for the headlamps. 87 would be the new power to your foot switch. 86 would be the wire wire you severed from the switch. 85 will go to a very good ground . When you turn on your headlamp switch it will supply power to the relay and close the contact points inside the relay and power up the headlamps, simple. The advantage of wiring it this way is that you can still utilize the stock dimmer switch which can handle the amps you are using. Mike McCarthy