where do I find a high beam wire for my trigger (1 Viewer)

[mmhailey]

I hope to just add my Hella lights so they come on when I turn on my high beam. I have a FJ60 which does not have the double headlight setup like the 62s... I have spent the last few hours searching and reading, but I can't figure out how to find one... I admit to being electrically challenged

There are 3 posts/leads on each headlight. One ( the middle one)is obviously ground. What is driving me crazy is that when the lights are on low beam, both the other leads are hot. When you switch to high beams one lead becomes cold, and the other is hot? Am I missing something? It seems that high should have both filaments/ leads hot. Then when they are dim only one lead should be hot.

I read and realize there are benefits to switching from other sources, but honestly my wife drives this vehicel a lot here in the dark winter months on a very dark gravel road, and I just want her to have more light when she flicks the brights on.

Thanks

 

[RockDoc]

Common is hot, the high and low terminals are grounded to light the appropriate filament. Even when the high beams are activated, the low beam passes a low current (sufficient to light the high beam indicator). If you need a 12v signal to trigger the aux lights, I think you'll actually have to tap in to the low beam "switching" wire (which should be close to 12v between the headlight and the high beam indicator when the highs are on).

 

[slcfj62]

Here is how the headlights work in an FJ60. When you turn the headlight switch on, a relay closes and puts 12V on the Red/White wire at the back of the Left side headlight and the Red/Black wire at the back of the Right side headlight. If the Hi/Lo Beam switch is in the Lo position, then the Red/Green wire at the back of both headlights is at ground and the Lo Beams turn on. When you switch to Hi Beams, the Red/Green wire is ungrounded and "floats" back up to 12V which lights the Hi Beam indicator in the dash and turns off the Lo Beam headlights. In the Hi Beam position, the Red/Yellow wire at the back of both headlights is switched to ground and the Hi Beams come on.

I'm not familiar with the Hella light harness, so this is a best guess on my part. But if it uses a standard relay, you can wire it to come on with your Hi Beams like this (legal in Alaska?). You will want to connect the heavy load wires to the battery (wire with the high amp fuse) and ground per your instructions, but you will need to connect the relay control wires (probably skinnier than the load wires) like this: (NOTE: the control wires that connect to the relay coil are the ones that connect to pin 85 and 86 of the relay) One of these control wires will probably have a low amp fuse inline with it. You will separate these wires (the wires that go to pin 85 and 86 of the relay) from the rest of the wire harness. You will connect the wire with the low amp fuse to either the Red/White wire at the back of the Left side headlight or the Red/Black wire at the back of the Right side headlight. You can also connect this wire to the battery. You will connect the other control wire to a Red/Yellow wire at the back of either headlight.

That should do it. You can post up a pic of what the relay harness looks like with a close up of the relay and I will be able to confirm that my instructions will work before you try it if you want.

EDIT: This will only work if your Hella harness employs a relay that switches a wire connected to your battery to the driving lights. If this isn't the case, don't attempt to wire the Hella lights to the existing headlight wires at all. The wires are not even adequate to power your stock headlights, let alone additional driving lights. But you already know this since you are looking to add additional lights.

 

[mmhailey]

I'll try to get up to my shop this morning, and take a picture of the Hella harness, and the headlight plugs. I had seen a picture of the plug on another post, but can't find it now. I do remember that the OEM headlight plug does not have anything but red/blue leads going to all three pins.

I have everything wired with the exception of a yellow trigger wire. If I touch the trigger wire to the + side of the battery the AUX lights come on. If all else fails today, I guess I'll just run the trigger to a switch on the dash, and get a hot wire from the fuse box that is only on when the key is on.

 

[slcfj62]

Because Toyota uses switched ground for the headlights, you need to reconfigure the relay in your Hella harness so than when you touch the wire to GROUND the lights come on. That way you can connect to your Hi Beam wire. This will be pretty easy for you to do. And all the wires connected to the headlight plug are Red with blue splotches and colored stripes on them. Ignore the blue splotches and look for the colored stripe. The colored stripes run the length of the wire and should be one of four colors: white, black, green or yellow.

Take a closeup picture of the wire side of your headlight plug as well as your wire harness and relay and I'll see if I can help you reconfigure the harness to work like you want.

 

[mmhailey]

Pics of setup

Here is the pic of the headlight plug.

Then the setup on the passenger side fender. The yellow wire is the trigger wire which you can see is not yet connected. The red is + side of battery with inline fuse. Blue ground to chassis. Black goes to Lights mounted on ARB bumper. The way it is setup when you power the yellow trigger the lights come on.

 

[slcfj62]

Assuming that the Hella lights have their own chassis ground connection, and are NOT grounded back to the blue relay wire, you can disconnect the blue wire from chassis ground. Is there a fuse in line with the yellow relay wire? If there is, then you can connect the yellow wire to the battery or any other 12 volt source, if there is no inline fuse in the yellow wire, then you should connect it as described below.

Is the pic of the headlight plug from the plug on the drivers side? If it is, and if that is the plug you want to tap into, then connect the yellow wire from the relay to the red wire with the white stripe. If you want to connect to the passenger side headlight plug, you will connect the yellow relay wire to the red wire with the black stripe.

Now connect the blue relay wire (after you disconnect it from ground) to the red wire with the yellow stripe at either headlight plug.

Now the Hella lights should come on with the hi beams.

I'm not sure how you are planning on tapping into the headlight wires, whether you will be using a clamp-on tap or are going to be stripping a little insulation and soldering the wires on, but make sure you wrap either one in black tape to electrically insulate and to seal against moisture.

 

[mmhailey]

Do you see the Blue wire connected to the fender well? That green wire at the same bolt is my ground for the Hella lights.

The pic is from the plug from the driver said.

 

[mmhailey]

Ok.... Thanks for the help. I am headed to the shop to reconfigure. I'll let you know what happens....

Thanx Again!!

 

[RockDoc]

Because Toyota uses switched ground for the headlights, you need to reconfigure the relay in your Hella harness so than when you touch the wire to GROUND the lights come on.

Much more straight forward than my garbled idea, mind you I'd just wire them independent of the high beams.

 

[mmhailey]

Success!!! That worked. I used a T- tap on the yellow and white. Then the trigger works as per your suggestion. What a group!

Now just have to wait till 3pm when it gets dark to align the lights