Introduction and Advice needed for wiring AUX lights

[Colicious]

Long time reader, first time poster here. Quick background info on me: Long story short, about 12 years ago my dad got a '76 fj40 which i helped him rebuild: 4" lift or so, chevy 350, A/C, etc, etc. it was runnin good on us (and i was driving it to school), until both the master and slave cynlinders for the clutch died, and pretty much the whole brake system. about that time, my dad bought a 99 cruiser for his car and i bought a e36 bmw m3. fast forward about 2 months ago, he was trading in his cruiser for a new bmw 550i (which, is a badass car, way faster than my m3). i wanted him to keep the cruiser because i wanted to take a roadtrip to moab with you guys next summer. well, as luck would have it, my m3 started burning oil, so my dad traded in my car and i got the cruiser. so its my car now, and so far i have just a Waag brush gaurd and some Hella AUX lights (which goes into my question below), but i have big plans for it, including a OME lift, 35" tires, slee rear bumper, and all that jazz. anways, that was a lot longer than i wanted. now onto the question

we bought some Hella Rallye 1000's years ago for our fj, but we never put them on, so since i got the brushgaurd, im taking them. i read the guid on hooking them up in replacement for the foglights, but i still have my factory fogs. its the harness strong enough to support the fogs and the hellas at the same time? id rather use the fog lights for the switch on the stalk and ease of install. much easier than runnin the whole new harness and drilling a hole in the dash.

so, can i run aux lights and the fogs on the same harness?

 

[Jim_Chow]

The OEM fog harness wires are pretty tiny...no way I'd use those to power aux. lights. If you want to run two prs of fog lights, I'd use the OEM fog harness (splice in near the lamp somewhere) to trigger the relay on the hella harness. Connect the hella harness directly to the battery w/ a dedicated fuse. This way, the hellas will draw current from the batter while the factory fog harness only powers the hella relay. This way, you won't burn up your OEM harness!

 

[Colicious]

so i would wire the factory fog lights in place of the switch, eh? and i would wire everything normal...

 

[DMX84]

You will be using the factory switch to power on the Hellas relay.

 

[ColoradoCarlisle]

Only problem with the factory switch is the lights will not work with high beams on. I would wire it up seperatly. It will only take another 15 minutes to drill through the fire wall and cut out a small section of one of the spare plates that are by the mirror adjustment. At night when I run my hellas I want all the light I can get

 

[hoser]

Only problem with the factory switch is the lights will not work with high beams on.

You can run both at the same time with a simple mod. Check out Sincity's thread.

 

[e9999]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Colicious]

thanks guys. what i ended up doing was pretty much wiring them like hella says too, except i didnt wire in the switch and just went strait to the fog light. everything works now, and im about to go do the highbeam mod.

 

[Colicious]

just did the highbeam mod. i couldnt get the pin out, so i just snipped it right next to the clip. i crimmped on an eye and ended up taping it to the hole because there was no way i could get it around the gold screw with the two clamshell covers on. but everything works: the factory fogs, normal lights, and highbeams, all with my aux lights. i have the cruiser pointing into my garage, and the lights are more than twice as bright as the headlights and highbeams combined. i just need to way until it gets dark before i can adjust them