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Help! Problems with new headlight wiring harness

jeeperguy21

jeeperguy21

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Syracuse, UT
I bought an upgraded headlight wiring harness as well as H4 headlights for my '99 XJ. I just got done installing it, and neither of the headlights, new or old, will work. They both work fine if I hook them up to the stock harness.

This is what I bought:
http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=744 I went with the H4 100/80w model.
and the harness:
http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=3730 I went with the HL28200S model.

So I followed instructions on other write ups I found and I can't figure out what is wrong here.

I disconnected the battery, cleaned the terminals, removed the old headlights, then fished the new harness through where I wanted it to be. I then hooked the one male connector into the female headlight connector on the passenger side, like the write ups say.

I then hooked up the power cables directly to the positive and negative terminals on the battery. After hooking up the headlights and turning them on, to my dismay, it didn't work. What am I overlooking here? I can provide pics if necessary.
 
another reason im glad i built my own... http://jeep-xj.info/HowtoHeadlightLoom.htm
the process of building it, teaches you how it works...
take the signal wire that goes into the oem headlight plug, and touch it to the +P battery terminal, does it click? if not, you either dont have battery voltage. if it clicks but doesnt light up, youve got bad wiring from the relay to the new headlight.

then, disconnect your grounds. and connect them to a varified ground.... ie negative battery terminal (wiring them here only helps anyways, essential for HID).
 
Post a link to your instructions. I noticed that there were realys included with the harness. What is switching power to your realys, the stock headlight switch or did you use a new toggle switch? In other words, how are you telling the lights to come on, the factory switch or with a new switch?
 
This is the link that I was using for reference, among many others:
http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=998565

Mine appears to be hooked up just like that write up except mine is on an XJ instead of a TJ, and my relay is mounted in a different spot.
 
check to make sure you hooked up the relays correctly

check if your switch wires are correct, the colors on mine were different then the colors of some other peoples, trial and error worked for me
 
So am I a fool for assuming the wiring harness that I bought was wired correctly? If something is going to go wrong, you can count on it happening to me :)
 
jeeperjohn said:
I bought a wiring harness and had to completely take it apart and redo it. The whole thing was wired wrong.
Click to expand...

That is terrible! Did you buy it from rallylights.com as well, or somewhere else?
 
Are you plugging the stock passenger side headlight connector into the new harness? Where are you grounding the new harness to?
 
I am plugging the stock passenger side headlight connector into the new harness. I am grounding the harness to the negative terminal of the battery. Is this not correct?
 
jeeperguy21 said:
I am plugging the stock passenger side headlight connector into the new harness. I am grounding the harness to the negative terminal of the battery. Is this not correct?
Click to expand...

Sounds correct, I was just double checking if you were plugging the factory headlight socket into the new harness. I read some people who had forgotten to do that...

With my harness I have 2 grounds, one on each head light end. I had to ground them to the body not the battery terminal. Maybe your harness is different in that respect though.

Check the fuses? Have a multi meter to check for power? I would assume the harness is good still, it's from the most reputable place from what I've read at least.

Edit:
You can try pulling the factor fog light relay if you have it. That was giving me all sorts of weirdness with my new harness... You can search and find out all about that issue. I don't remember it causing No lights though but worth a shot?
 
Last edited:
I figured that pictures of what I have might be helpful in resolving this issue. So here is the harness in all its glory laid out on the ground:
DSCN0146.jpg


This pic shows the 3 connectors that I have. The male end on the far left is what I plug into the stock passenger side headlight connector. The 2 female connectors are what I plug my headlights into:
DSCN0147.jpg


This pic shows the positive and negative ring connectors with the fuse on the positive wire. These I hooked up to the positive and negative terminals on the battery.
DSCN0149.jpg


This next pic shows the relays and the male connector. As you can see, there is a metal gold-colored object attached on the cable that I am not sure what it does. Does this have to be grounded to the body in order for the whole harness to work? It has two holes on each side that appear to be mounting holes, but my instructions don't say anything about this needing to be grounded. Here are two photos of it:
DSCN0150.jpg

DSCN0148.jpg


Please help me. This simple plug-n-play install is driving me nuts.
 
I just tried another install, this time making sure to ground the gold piece in the photo above. Nothing changed. I am still not getting any power to either headlight. I just emailed Dave at rallylights.com since his name was on the invoice. I explained exactly what I did in the exact order, and hopefully he'll be able to tell me if I am missing something or if there is an issue with the harness itself. I would still appreciate any insight and help you might have.
 
I have the same style harness from an different company and it looks almost identical minus the box. The best thing I can suggest would be to hook the harness up to the battery and to the factory light plug. Leave the headlight plugs unhooked.

From there with the headlight switch on test for power at the fuse in the new harness on both sides. Then pull each relay and test for power from the red battery lead and also one of the leads coming from the factory wiring. You should have 12v on the red wire and also the other lead. I would then flip the highbeam switch on and check for 12v on the other lead from the stock lights.

If your getting 12v from all of that then move to testing the grounds in that harness. You should have the ground on the battery and also one thru the factory harness.

If all that stuff checks out you should also be able to feel the relays click when switching from high to low.

In the pics of your harness I can't totally make out the bottom of the relay wiring but that would be where I would suspect a problem.
 
I'm kind of in a bind right now because I don't have a multimeter to test this right now. Here is a better picture of how everything is hooked up. If something stands out to you as being wrong or strange, let me know!
DSCN0151.jpg
 
To clarify, the relay with the white and green wires is a switching relay- the outputs are 87 and 87a, while the other relay has dual 87 contacts?
 
jeeperjohn said:
The gold thing kinda looks like a resistor, but I don't know why they would put a resistor in the circuit.
Click to expand...

I don't know why they would either. Hopefully when the company emails me back tomorrow that they'll have some answers and solutions for me. I can't imagine that they will be taking Columbus Day off. :)
 
jeeperguy21 said:
I'm kind of in a bind right now because I don't have a multimeter to test this right now. Here is a better picture of how everything is hooked up. If something stands out to you as being wrong or strange, let me know!
DSCN0151.jpg
Click to expand...

Looking at this pic I'm not understanding how the control side is wired. I'm really not seeing what the gold box is for. If it is a diode to stop 12v backfeed that doesn't make sense. Its a switched ground system that grounds one fillament in the light or the other. Looking at the other pics show that the left relay has a normally closed position which would make me think that it would only need to energize the coil to switch to the other beam setting.

The left relay is the control that selects which element gets grounded via the column switch and the right is just a 12v cutoff that works with the pull switch in the dash.

The power side that draws from the battery is fine as well as the leads going out to the lights.

I'm going to have to take a peek at mine and see how its setup. I don't recall it looking this way. Is it possible that they sent/built you the wrong harness?
 
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