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Good headlight harness?

Follow up post. Had the grille and lights out the other day while installing my driving lights, and the Dorman connectors show no signs of deterioration. No issues at all with the wiring changes, although I've been fighting with condensation in the housings (looking more closely at other cars, I see even more water inside factory housings- WTF, doesn't anyone make a decent light?), and a sticking high beam relay when temps dropped well below zero this winter.

On that note, if you're using the BOR/eAutoworks/Chinese harnesses and need a relay, Pilot uses the same style of relay in some of their kits. Autozone used to carry these, although I didn't see them on the website the last time I looked. NAPA and Amazon still list them; I'm sure there are others as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Pilot-PL-RY1-Auxiliary-Lighting-Accessory/dp/B000BL2Z3I

https://www.napaonline.com/Catalog/CatalogItemDetail.aspx?A=BK_7355760_0006535881&An=0

Apparently this style of relay is common in foreign cars and ATVs, although I don't know on which ones; year/make/model info would make chasing down suitable/more commonly stocked replacements much easier.
 
Heres my experience, I'm really starting to learn you get what you pay for. I got the eautoworks harness, it came with a bad relay. I also got the autopal headlight enclosures and bulbs 55/100.
So I installed it, straight up plug and play. Welllll, long story short I was having all sorts of problems with one headlight out or another or no low beams. So I thought I eliminated all the simple stuff like tried a known working bulb(or so I thought). Still having problems I break out the multimeter and I get perfect ground and good voltages. Turns out the autopal bulb was dead on arrival and so was my old warner light. Got new bulbs and it worked fine.

I did waste a few hours looking too deep into a simple fix but man what a difference night time driving on our back roads its like stadium lights with 55/100w a joy to ride in the darkness. I would make my own harness if this fails or if I did it again. Excuse my grammar we have a long weekend and we are drinking in the backyard listening to some Johnny Paycheck.Hasta:cheers:
 
Just swapped in the harness and autopals with the 55/100's and what a difference. Still have to adjust things a bit but the low's are definitely brighter than before and the high beams light up the road like stadium lights. :eek:

The only issue i had was with one of the harness connectors. The wire had pulled out of the back of the metal connector itself and was a pita to get out of the plastic. I think if i had the time I would pull them all apart and maybe solder them in to keep them from working loose or add better connectors.

It was a bit expensive I feel for what you get but then again, i needed it right away and had it within 5 days. The lights and housings were there in 3 !
 
Another eAuto harness installed. My Jeep didnt come with factory fogs, but the owner put some in using the factory bulbs and housings. They even work like factory lights off the factory switch and turn off when the brights are used. I wanted to have 'em on all the time but when I checked the D/S harness for a red wire that had 5-6v with the lights on and was unable to find that voltage. There was also a purple wire that had about 12v. It would have been nice, but eventually I'll be throwing on an aftermarket bumper and omitting those lights anyways. I want to throw in my IPF housings but my girl mistakenly only ordered one, assuming they came in pairs. Thanks for all the informative posts.
 
I'm just about done with a whole headlight harness upgrade on mine. I'm redoing everything including the factory fog lights. 12AWG on the headlights, and 14AWG on the fogs Adding relays for all, and modded the PDC to provide all my fusing locations, and the relay for the fogs.
 
From way back on page 14....

hubs97xj said:
On that note, if you're using the BOR/eAutoworks/Chinese harnesses and need a relay, Pilot uses the same style of relay in some of their kits. Autozone used to carry these, although I didn't see them on the website the last time I looked. NAPA and Amazon still list them; I'm sure there are others as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Pilot-PL-RY1-Auxiliary-Lighting-Accessory/dp/B000BL2Z3I

https://www.napaonline.com/Catalog/CatalogItemDetail.aspx?A=BK_7355760_0006535881&An=0

Apparently this style of relay is common in foreign cars and ATVs, although I don't know on which ones; year/make/model info would make chasing down suitable/more commonly stocked replacements much easier.
Click to expand...
 
I just installed a Xenon HI/LO HID kit with auto pall lights. At first the HI/LO was only working on the driver side so I took the passenger side out and tried the HI/LO switch for the passenger side with bulb outside of the housing and it worked so I put everything back together and both sides work now. At first it seemed like the passenger side was a different color then the driver side but now they look the same. The manual sais the bulbs need to burn in for 10 minutes. I have only had them on at dusk so I will keep you posted on performance but so far they seem realy bright and the high beam hits about 200 yards out. I think it is funny when the lights have a breakin proceedure.
 
I installed this harness back around november, which looks to be identical to the eaworks one: http://www.amazon.com/Putco-230004HW-Premium-Automotive-Lighting/dp/B001P29X4G/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_3

also cheaper at $28, and it shipped for free...

It worked fine for a month or 2... then the relays got wet, and i started loosing high beams or low beams until I wiggled the relays around a bit.

Last night I replaced the relays with with the pilot ones listed in this thread, and at the same time, replaced my headlights with autopal lights w/ 65/100 bulbs.

I used dialectic grease on the relay connections, and wrapped both up with electrical tape to ensure no more moisture gets in them.

When I was all done, everything was working just peachy, but now this morning the passenger side low beam doesn't come on... I haven't had a chance to examine it, but would anyone have a suggestion of where to start??

If I had to do it over again, I would NOT buy this harness...
 
I tried going the build your own harness route and by the time I was done running around town to gather up all the parts to do this I had about $45 in it so I deemed it not worth the time to build this harness when I could buy one pre-made for near the same amount of coin. I was also in college at the time and figured the money would be better spent at the bar. If you already have wiring and connectors laying around then all you will be buying is the relays, fuse holder, and H4 connectors and then I would say it would be worth it to spend the time and money to make your own but I had to buy everything to do this since I did not have anything at home laying around already.

Since the price to buy the eautoworks one and price to build your own are so close its really a matter of if you want to build it yourself and have the satisfaction of saying you did or if you want to save yourself some time and possibly some headache to just buy a pre-made harness and spend only 30-45 mins putting it in.

Edit: Wow didn't realize how far this thread had gotten when I posted. opps oh well still going to follow this as I still want to upgrade now that I finally picked up some H4 housings and bulbs and output is still pretty lousy.
 
Last edited:
fallacist said:
they've got less than an hour on em. would they really go that quick?

am i looking for typical signs of charring/blackness?
Click to expand...

The lights are paired so that both low beams are one relay, and the high bemas on the other. If only one bulb is out, the relay has power and is working, so your problem is almost certainly between the relay and the housing. Bad connection where they're spliced to the output of the relay, broken/shorted wire, bad connection at the plug, bad bulb.

Pull the bezel, pull the housing, and check for power across the low beam and ground terminals in the connector, and inspect the plugs for damage. If you have power, the bulb is likely bad; if you don't, you've got a wiring issue.

I've not seen any damage or discoloration when any of my halogens died. On all of my bulbs that have failed, a very small section of the filament (a few mms, at most) burned out. Impossible to see until removed from the housing. With cheap bulbs, I wouldn't rule anything out, but it doesn't cost you more than 15 minutes of your time to diagnose.
 
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