So I tapped the two hot wires to the passenger headlight plug as sources for my relays on some fogs lamps. Now I have blown two headlights in about a week. I know I must've caused it when I tapped the wire. So I am going to undo that and all the wire routing that it encompasses and pull the relay sources into the jeep behind the dash. Other than the lighter plug, anyone have a good source for power. I would prefer sources that are switched on when the low beams are on for simplicity of operation. Anyone have ideas? This is going to be a big enough pain. I would really like to at least cut out the hunting part.


Thanks for any help.

 

I have not done it yet, but I'm going to tap into the side marker lights for the aftermarket fogs. I think the instructions for my fogs even say to tap into the side markers. Ill double check that

 

Could you please clarify the word "source" above? Do you mean "trigger" for the relays? What relay connection goes to the headlight, 30/87 or 85/86?

As a "source" you could go direct to the battery. As a trigger you should be able to connect to the headlights, amber marker lights or tap the in-cab power port to trigger the relay.


Do you still have the bad bulbs? Can you see that the filament is burned out? Do you know if the relay has an internal diode? These three questions all have the same basis. Some relays have an internal diode. If you wire it backwards it will appear to be a short in the wiring at the relay. Since you tapped the headlights, if you had wired the relay (diode) backwards the computer would detect a short in the HEADLIGHT circuit and shut off the light.

 

Thanks for replies. I figured it out tonight with a voltmeter. I just did something stupid. I used the high and low beam power to the passenger headlight to trigger two different relays. I ran these trigger wires to switches in the cab and then to the relays. That was perfect. But I got stupid and decided to add a LED to light the area under the dash. I wanted the light on with the headlights so I thought, "Hey if I tie a wire to each of the sources to the switches for the relays then the LED will come on with hi and low beam. Unfortunately I forgot that doing so allowed the low beam to backfeed the high beam to the headlight and vice versa. Hence I was keeping the hi/low beam on the passenger bulb on whenever the lights were on either. Had nothing to do with the fog/driving lights. I disconnected the LED and connected it to the switched outlet and no problems and the lights work perfect - headlights and fogs/driving lights.

Hope this helps someone else if anyone is as stupid as me. Of course it took 3 hours of undoing stuff to find it but in the end all is good.