Wiring help

[MikeS100]

Hi all,

Can anyone point me in the right direction to cut into the side lights and the headlights (dipped) from outside of the headlight unit on a 2002 C70? I've got some led strip to fit as drls so I'd rather not have to wire them in inside the headlight and then route out, if I can cut into the wires in the engine bay near the lights that will be easier.

Any help appreciated,

Mike

[Thanatos]

Why not just pull the plug for the DRL out of the headlight cut it solder the led strips to it and feed it back in takes the whole of 5 mins to do 20 mins to remove the headlight from car

[MikeS100]

I did think about that, and to be honest that may well be what I do, but I'm just being lazy and didn't want to take the headlight out. As the drls are outside of the headlight I just thought I might be able to cut into the wiring somewhere else.

But I've got a relay to install so the drls turn off when the headlights turn on so it would make sense to put that in the headlight housing.

[mikealder]

Left headlight:

Pin 1 Black Earth
Pin 2 Green Dipped headlight
Pin 3 Blue Main Beam
Pin 4 White Sidelight

Right headlight:

Pin 1 Black Earth
Pin 2 Green/ White Dipped headlight
Pin 3 Blue/ White Main Beam
Pin 4 Grey Sidelight

There is also a feed for sidelights to each of the front indicators, not too sure if this would be of use but only the US spec cars use this extra sidelight wire, on the UK/ Euro cars it is wired and works it simply isn't used White wire on left indicator and grey wire on the right indicator.

Hope that helps - Mike

[MikeS100]

That's great, thanks Mike! That will make it much easier

[mikealder]

Mike, If you go to This Index page and pick which diagrams best suit your car, note there is a vert diagram which should be handy even if the date doesn't match your car it will still cover it - As for the main diagrams grab a copy of the 99 diagram that is just short of 80MB in size as that one is the most complete, then you can find colour codes and routing for any wires on your car - Mike

[MikeS100]

Thanks Mike. I think you gave me this link before but I lost the downloads when my old computer broke.

A few photos with the new drls installed. A close up with them on in bright sunlight and then from the end of the drive. You can see them ok in the photos but they were much brighter in real life. Got the wife to drive down the road and back and as she came round the corner about 200 feet away you could see them pretty clearly.

3rd one was at dusk, that was what I really wanted them for. Too dark to drive without lights but not dark enough that I need the hids on. Again not come out great in the photo but they're really good in real life and just what I wanted.

And then a couple once it got dark. I wouldn't drive with them on with it this dark for fear of dazzling other drivers (they switch off when the headlights come on) but just to give an idea of how bright they are.

Overall I'm really happy with them. Soldering the wires on to the strip was a bit of a pain but I think that's more to do with my 15 year old £10 soldering iron. Cost me £3.99 for a meter of led strip and £3.29 for the relay to turn them off when the lights come on.

[krussel]

Wow mike those stripes under the bumper are really bright ! Any more pics and details about them.

Nice bungalow btw, looks tucked out the way.

[MikeS100]

Thanks krussel, I was really pleased with the result. This is the listing I bought them from, they are the 5630 version in white:

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item...d=161230174915

I bought a 1 meter strip and it came with a connector already attached to one end, then once I cut it to the lengths that I wanted I obviously had to solder wires onto the offcut. To be honest if I was doing it again I would buy 2 0.5 meter lengths so they both came with the connector already attached, and in fact I have ordered another 0.5 meter length today so I have it ready in case my soldering fails, but I think it would be ok if I could have used a better quality soldering iron.

Wiring up was easy, I just cut into the headlight wiring on the passenger side and wired the relay in there, and then just ran cables along the bumper from the relay to the led strips. As I described above, the addition of the relay means they switch off when the headlights turn on which is needed to make them road legal. There not as bright as the drls on new cars, but they're bright enough and for a cost of less than £10 I'm more than happy.

And thanks for the comments about the bungalow! Lol. There's actually a main road right behind where I'm standing to take that photo at the end of the drive, but you can't hear the traffic when you're sitting in the garden and it's a nice area. Top of our list when we moved in 3 years ago was to repaint the garage, windows and window shutters to get rid of the purple and yellow but as you can see that is still on the to do list! Lol

[Thanatos]

hmmmm i have the same stuff in amber you have just given me an