Fog light upgrade

My '94 Country has the OE fog lights that sit on top of the front bumper.
If I wanted to upgrade to some better off-road driving lights, can I replace these fogs and use the existing wires and in-dash switch??
Anybody know what the watt capacity is of this system?

TIA
Manny

I don't see why you couldn't do that. Find the fuse for the fog lamps, take it's amp rating and multiply by 12, and that should give you a good idea of the maximum wattage lamps to run.

amps x volts = watts

Cool. Thanks.
I assume running a hotter fuse will endanger the wires/switch, so I sould stick with what's in there.

Correct.

If you want to run a high wattage bulb, you could probably run a new relay off your existing lights wires and a new hot lead to the relay that would handle the higher watts. that way you can still use the factory switch.

The stock lights should be 55W. I would not use larger than that with the stock wiring. I replaced my stock ones with the Hella 500's.

Pretty much any of the Hella 55W lights will work. I would use the Hella wiring kit and use one of the old wires to trigger the hella fused relay though.
On my 98 I ran Hella 550's and now run Hella 450's, both seem to put out the same amount of light but for some reason the 450's cost more bucks.

I still think you could use your hot lead from your stock lights as the "remote" wire to turn on a relay powered by a heavier guage fused wire directly from a 12volt source and run a 130 watt style off of your factory switch. This way all the amperage is going through the new "hot lead" and the relay, not your switch or factory wiring.

Wiring

If you're upgrading you lights they probably carry more current, at least mine did and the stock wiring proved to be a little lacking. Do yourself a favor and pull some larger guage wire so you don't have a meltdown on the trail (not that I know that from experience or anything ).

I thought that was what I said ?? Use one of the old lights wires to trigger the new hella fused relay and use the heavier hella wiring for better voltage/current which will result in better output.

Gentlemen, let's not get hostile here.

The OEM setup uses a relay. Ergo, there is no need to run a new wire to control the relay. That part of the circuit is perfectly adequate, because whether you use the OEM relay or your own relay, the switch circuit carries only the current required to trigger the relay.

Although you can do as suggested and use the existing light wiring to trigger a new relay, what you then have is a switch operating a relay which is in turn operating another relay. Seems kinda dumb to me, but I've been accused of being worse than stupid on occasion.

Since the OEM switch is already wired to control a relay, if there are concerns about the capacity of the OEM wiring why not simply run heavier wires to the OEM relay and keep it simple?

Right on

Thanks Eagle, I wasn't trying to trample anyones posting. Having had some electrical wiring problems with my XJ and various other cars that I have completely rewired there is no substitute for good old fashioned heavy guage wire. I had a wire that overheated all the way from the battery bus to underneath the dash, frying every connector and several other wires with it. Also, as has been posted on this forum before, it is wise to add another ground wire from the engine to the frame as the stock ground sometimes won't quite carry the load of high watt lights. The stock fuseable wire that runs from the battery to the relay is junk and I replaced mine with a regular wire with a fuse in the middle. That way you know exactly how much current you can pull. I believe that is part of your kit.