Relayed my euro lights.

[camron at worldaccessnet.com (Camron D. Crouse)]

So a few weeks back, I've been at work for a couple hours, and someone 
tells me I left my lights on....  Hmm, that's funny, well I look, and my 
HI-beam inners (only) are blazing away.  This is very odd, as my 
headlights don't come on without the car running. I open her up and hit 
the headlight switch a few times, but the hi beams won't go out. Pop 
hood, hear a faint buzzing.  Dig down in front of the battery, a nasty 
rusted old relay is the culprit.  Ugly Muthah.  Bang is a few times and 
viola, my hi beams go out.  But not a very reassuring feeling, eh?  Right.

Well two days ago Hi beams crapped out completely.   I had built a new 
Bosch 4x40A relay harness as per .org tech page about 8 months ago but 
couldn't make heads or tails of the PO's lousy wiring of the Euros, so I 
had let it just sort of ride along shotgun under the hood (disconnected) 
all this time.  Time to dive in I guess.

Last night I pull out my 4x40A harness, inspect, lots of corroded 
connections, so I cut off ALL existing crimp connections, then recrimp 
and _solder_  fresh connectors on (as I should have the first time 
around).  Okay, finally figure out "trigger" wire ponts on car's 
original wiring for HI and LO beams.  I do a test and badda bing! I have 
*real* relays! 

Final install, clean up some old wiring, silicone all connections, and 
now I'm ready to roll.  Only took me ALL NIGHT.

PO had installed a 2-position toggle switch to also controll the high 
beams.  It was always a bit funny to figure out how it worked. I would 
have liked to have had the switch provide 3 position (Lo, Hi w/o inner 
Hi, and regular Hi - thank you Ian Butler for the terriffic 
danielsternlighting.com link which suggests this method) butI couldn't 
figure out how to reintegrate this switch, so I will leave it  for a 
possible foglight  switch in the future.  I think to use this switch I 
would have to make it a 6x40A setup, but I was fresh out of relays ;) 
The danielsternlighting.com site shows their 4 lamp system using only 
two relays, or adding a third to make use of a hi beam toggle.  
Therefore,  I'd have to add two more relays to continue to use the 
switch on my setup  Anybody have experience with this method?

Something I'd still like to fix is the crappy headlamp connectors I got 
at Schucks, which have 16 Guage wiring leads. Ugh. I didn't have any of 
the "snap in" slide connectors to crimp into my harness, so I'll prolly 
pick up a couple to replace the mickey mouse leads in there now.  I also 
ran out of shrink tubing, so I'll have to take care of a few more 
connectors.  But hey, I'm on the road again.


Man, I'm like 750 messages behind you guys, I haven't been able to keep 
up for a couple weeks!


- Camron from Vancouver, WA USA
   '86.5 Black 16V 2.0L