Melted electrical connection...what to do?

So I put a headlight wiring kit from LMC Truck on my '96 Cherokee that circumvents the normal wiring and runs the headlights directly off the battery by way of a relay. The kit runs the lights at 55/100 (low, hi) watts instead of the original 55/60. One reason I did this was because the light output was terrible, and the other was because for some unknown reason the headlights would shut off after being on hi for a bit. Never did this on low. I've had the new wiring kit on for a few years now and it seems to have solved the issue.

The problem I'm having now though is that this new harness is melting at one of the connections...



You can see only one of the wires is overheating while the other seems to be ok. I'm guessing the hot one is used by the high beams.

What could be causing this? Could it be related to why the high beams used to shut off before I replaced the wiring harness? A while back I asked about the shutting off issue on a number of Jeep boards but nobody had heard of this particular problem before.

Sorry about the big a## pic, not sure how to resize it. The melted harness is on the right side toward the bottom of the pic.

I am going to guess that there is a poor connection creating high resistance.

It appears the other line is also heating up. Looking at the splice next to the battery terminal it looks like that has begun to turn black in the middle.

Why is the one wire all wrapped up in tape? Melted insulation?

Have you checked your headlight grounds?

What size is that wire? Looks like it might too small to handle the headlight current draw? It seems like those cheap plastic connectors are always the first thing to go. Poor connection equals high resistance means melted wiring.

trippled said:

What size is that wire? Looks like it might too small to handle the headlight current draw? It seems like those cheap plastic connectors are always the first thing to go. Poor connection equals high resistance means melted wiring.

Click to expand...

In addition to taking it all apart and cleaning it properly.

You need a new battery post clamp too, it is over tightened. Replace the wires, eliminate the connector, solder the connection, and add fuse(s) as close as possible to the battery.

What are the wires there for?