Spot light self fit?

Damokc

hi guys, I have looked in both the Motor DIY thread and the Motors thread but couldn't find what I was looking for? I'm want to know has anyone fitted spot lights themselves. is it as complicated as it seems, with relay switches and the likes. id love to give it a bash myself as I do a lot of stuff myself. i cant even find a decent video on youtube. ideally they would come on with the side lights. there are what seems to be 4 spare plugs, 2 on either side of the engine bay. its a 98 civic. would these be for fitting of ODM fogs? things is I have an aftermarket non ODM set for years that were got but never fitted.

VEry easy to wire them, join the earth terminals and earth that. Power them off the relay, power and earth the relay and them switch it by a switch or off nous heads, easier to switch it off the heads. Either use a fused relay or use an inline fuse, wiring diagram is supplied with spots most of the time.

Damokc

What? I don't have the packaging any more. I don't think I'll be going anyway near them now.:o

R.O.R

Years ago I wired a set of Fog Lamps to my MG Metro - purely because I thought it looked a bit bare under the front bumper.

I was doing an electronics A-Level at the time so thought I'd save a bit of money and not bother with the wiring kit, just hack it together myself.

Mounting them on the bumper and actually getting the wiring on the units was the easy bit, but I couldn't figure out where to wire them in to. Took me ages to feed the wire through a tiny hole in the bulkhead and the only place I could find to wire them to on the dash was to the small light that lit up the rear foglight switch.

They did work, but if you turned them on at idle, the engine would stall unless you gave it a bit of gas.

tl;dr - get someone to do it for you.

Beggared

Here you go.
These will come on and go off with your headlights, a legal requirement, and have an optional switch that will allow you to use your headlights without the spots.

Damokc

Beggared wrote: »

Here you go.
These will come on and go off with your headlights, a legal requirement, and have an optional switch that will allow you to use your headlights without the spots.

thanks Beggard but I'm crap at reading schematics. TBH I actually don't understand relays and switches and stuff like that.I thought it would be more straight forward, like just tap into the wire going to the existing lights or something.

Beggared

It's really very simple. Those numbers 30,85,86 and 86 are printed on the relay. Just tell the guy in the motor factors what the relay is for and he'll give you the right one. Ask him for a some femaile spade fittings to do the connections to the relay. Get an extra few in case you break a couple. The insulated ones cost a few cents more but are a better job.

Run a red wire from pin 87 to the red wire coming out of both spotlights.
Connect the black wires coming from the spots together and run them to an earth point.

Locate the power feed wire going to one headlight and run a wire from there, through an inline 1 amp fuse, to pin 86 on the relay.

Run a cable from the positive terminal on the battery, through an inline 15 amp fuse, to pin 30 on the relay.

To fit a switch to prevent the spots coming on at all just locate the earth wire for one headlight and going through the switch connect it to pin 85 on the relay.

That's it. I did it in about 30 minutes. The most fiddley bit was fixing the switch to the dashboard.

Beggared

Beggared wrote: »

It's really very simple.................

Indeed it is, I fitted spots to my first car years before I attempted an oil change

Damokc

I'd really like them to come on with the rest of the lights though and as said above is there a legal requirement for them to do so? Is it an NCT failure or what if they don't. Right, I might man up and chance it next week!!:D

Damokc

Damokc wrote: »

I'd really like them to come on with the rest of the lights though and as said above is there a legal requirement for them to do so? Is it an NCT failure or what if they don't. Right, I might man up and chance it next week!!:D

They can come on with your head lights
You can't have spots coming on with side lights or dims.

Damokc

sound, what weight wire should i use? what kinda list of stuff do i need of materials like? sorry but I've never done any electronic work on the car bar plugging in a radio and wiring new speakers!:p i might even attack this tomorrow maybe.

Beggared

Damokc wrote: »

I'd really like them to come on with the rest of the lights though and as said above is there a legal requirement for them to do so? Is it an NCT failure or what if they don't. Right, I might man up and chance it next week!!:D

There is a legal requirement for your spots to turn off when you dip your headlights. The wiring above complies with that requirement. If you do not use the optional switch the spots will come on and go off as you turn on and off your headlights. The inclusion of the switch allows you to use your headlights without the spots coming on.
Tell the guy in the motor factors what you are doing and he will advise you on the wire etc that you need. Let's know how you get on.

Damokc

I suppose the right thing to do would be print off the schematic and give it to him. going golfing today but will let you know how I get on when I try it.

I doubt there's a need to print it off, relay, cable, in line fuse holder and fuse, female connectors to push on the relay, a lash of connectors to crimp the cable onto the spots, some terminals to connect the power and ground cables to the battery............ normal enough request for factors staff. Well, nowadays it's not to common I suppose and fitting spots etc to cars isn't as common as years back.

Beggared

TBH after I fitted mine I upgraded my headlight bulbs and that was almost as good as the spots and a lot less effort. Still I have both now and the dark evenings are coming on the country roads.

Damokc

Am I missing something here, is it the law that when I dim my headlights the spots have to go off? If this is the case then most cars I meet on the road are illegal.:eek: Going to the motor factors tomorrow for shtuff!

Dilbert75

Are you talking about fog lights? They're only supposed to be used when there is poor visibility i.e. fog, not darkness.

Henry Ford III

Might be a better idea to uprate the bulbs?

Damokc

well to be honest its more for cosmetic reasons really. i could do with a little more light too though.:)

Damokc

job done and they look good. i wired them with their own circuit and separate switch in the dash so they can be turned on/off as needed