ive always had dim lights since ive had my mk2 golf but never bothered me until a few years ago, so i tried different types of bulbs , cleaning connections etc then decided to put jetta fronts lights on which seemed to be much better.Then an uprated headlight loom, again bit better. In June this year i put HID's in and was amazing but the drivers side ballast kept blowing, contacted the company and they sent 3 ballasts and ended up blowing the same one each time but over a period of a few months. They seem to have stopped trading now and cant get a refund and refuse to pay 30 for another set.Also noticed the high beam wasnt that much different to the low beam. So back to the drawing board, im going to put new bulbs and uprated loom in again, now i wondered if this would work , i remember with this set up that when i change to high beam and pull the stalk toward me but hold it there , the lighting was good as its keeping high and low beam on, but obviously you have to let go of the stalk at some point and its dim again, so wondered if i connected the 87 contact on the relay to 87a it would keep high and low beam on together. To give you an example how bad they are i can drive around on high beam (again this is with the standard bulbs and uprated loom) and not get flashed once Also the front fog lights look like theyre lit with candels
Does your uprated loom consist of one relay each side? if so then it is likely that it only uprates the dipped beam and not high beam. my dipped beams are better than a lot of modern cars, just using my own uprated loom with 2 x 30a 4pin relays, some cable that looks like it can handle about 60A, and and 2x phillips xtreme vision +100% bulbs. mine is a 4lamp grille but when i switch to high beam they look like candles they are just higher. the alternate pin in a 5 pin relay would turn the hi-beam on when dipped is off, but all the time. i cant see this working, unless you wired it up so that the relay didnt get any kind of power until one or the other was on.
it is also important to have a good beam pattern, which you wont have with HID's, not only will it not blind other drivers, but it gives an evenly spread light. i was debating HID's but now im glad i didnt as mine are more than up for the job, also have u disconnected the resistor on the N/S inner wing and binned it? this was giving issues on mine with uprated loom...
Hi yes 1st of all i have got rid of the resistor long time ago lol, pita that thing, to be fair would have had to get rid of it for uprated loom anyhow the loom consists of 2 x 40a relays, and feeds hi and low each side,pin 87 is piggy backed to feed both sides , so one relay feeds both hi beams and other relay feeds both low beams i think i get you about the 5 wire relay switching over, but i thought if i soldered 87 and 87a it would feed both contacts and not switch over as theres a constant feed to them.........saying that there would be no difference in switching lol it would be perminanly on hi??, oh brain doing overtime!!
little update hope someone can solve this, the other ballast blew tonight so ive ripped the HID's out and reverted back to the OEM loom and fit some 100w bulbs, and yes its like having T light candles in again and yellow, if theres no street lights i can see the beam albeit weak but in town where there are street lights it looks like i have no lights on
Hi Neil, Long time ... Are the OEM units new, if not the old reflectors will be way past their best and same can be said for the switching / earthing components ... we`re all getting on a bit now I assume that you are running higher rated fuses with the 100W`s ? Main and dip can be configured together through relays and higher rated fuses, I just forget how ... that age thing again lol The club has a new electrical sponsor - 12volt Planet ..... so maybe give them a shout ? All the best.
On mine I just got some standard vw relay holders and fuse holders from scrappy with no53 relays and de pinned the headlights low and high beam and then used the feed to trigger the relays at the fuse box then fed the feed straight into the loom again. Used good quality Xeon bulbs and the key is new quality headlights and they are outstanding ! Like daylight. I live in the highlands so good headlights are important. There so bright it's quite impressive. You can also use single throw double pole relays so each light has it's own pin for feed. Main beam is only about 4.5 amp so relay 53 is more than up to the job. I think I used one relay for Low beam and two for main beam.
must be something wrong there...ive got a loom that i made and its at least as good as modern cars and better than alot of them (non hid of corse) are you running fresh earths for the bulbs ?...could always wire up a bulb with some decent gauge wire direct to the battery as a test , if its brighter then the loom is letting it down
Hi Andrew, no there not new so maybe time for some new ones and no im a bad boy i didnt change the fuses, it was such a rush job last night in the dark however i will change them soon. I know what you mean about the age thing , i seem to forget everything iv learned in the past lol skydivebaz, good info there, again i think i need to be looking at new units and i do have an uprated loom which i didnt get chance to fit last night but again when i have more time i will, i have loads of 53 relays too so may use 4, one for each beam , or is that a bit excessive PB you think a lot like me, i sat thinking there must be something wrong, not just for the dim lights but to keep blowing the HID ballast's, im going to have a better look at the weekend and start with all the earth points again. i did also think of wiring them direct to the battery ,obviously just for test purposes , i suppose this is a good way of eliminating the wiring side, and if still dim will prove the units are no good
ok so you have one relay powering both dipped and one relay powering both hi. any idea what rating the cable is? if both dipped are running from the same relay im guessing they are coming from the same output pin on the relay, but only drivers side keeps blowing which would tell me it has to be a bad earth to the drivers side headlamp, if it is wired in the way you say. also not sure how many amps would be needed to supply BOTH headlamps with +100% bulbs, i would definately prefer one for each side (or 2 if uprating high beam also). try changing the relay and see if it helps.
ok so you have one relay powering both dipped and one relay powering both hi. any idea what rating the cable is? if both dipped are running from the same relay im guessing they are coming from the same output pin on the relay, but only drivers side keeps blowing which would tell me it has to be a bad earth to the drivers side headlamp, if it is wired in the way you say. also not sure how many amps would be needed to supply BOTH headlamps with +100% bulbs, i would definately prefer one for each side (or 2 if uprating high beam also). try changing the relay and see if it helps.
right, at the present time its on OEM loom with 100w bulbs but is still dim previously had it on HID kit which kept blowing the drivers side ballast last night the passenger ballast blew hence why im back on OEM loom i do have an uprated loom which i intend putting on at the weekend which has 2 relays, ill check on figures later on, unsure of cable rating ,how do i find that out?
2 relays say 40A/30A and all wires have external diameter of 3.5mm and the way its wired looks like one relay runs high and other runs low, but as i say its not on the car yet, i want to try deal with the problem from the bottom
should say in small writing on it, but you can usually tell roughly just by thickness of it, if you are running 2 lights off one relay this should be ok, just make sure the battery live and earth is man enough e.g if you use 20a cable to each headlight, the main supply to the relay should be 40a or close to it to ensure it can supply enough juice for both headlights.
on an OEM loom the voltage all goes through the headlight switch, they do burn out, with an uprated loom this shouldnt be a prob as it redirects the current straight from the battery through the relay, the original wires are purely a trigger. also while it is on OEM loom, check the voltage to the headlight plug while its running, if its significantly less than 13v then its a problem, mine was showing 9v before uprated loom went on
just looked at the uprated loom and this is how its wired ,looks right to me but feel free to check relays are identical, just couldn't be bothered marking the second ones numbers lol
ok so the earth from the h4 plugs go to the relay? the earths to the H4 plugs should be straight to a good earth point or battery negative. in the uprated loom you only need earths to the relays, the earth for the H4 plug should be done seperately on the car, or straight to the battery - it may be ok this way you have done it, but im not 100% how it would effect it... RJ may be of more help on that one
This is how i wired mine up, i didnt bother with the high beam but i probably will eventually. got bored lol
not on the OEM loom No but on the uprated loom the earths do go to the relays and are crimped to the wire that goes to earth on the battery terminal via pin 85 so makes a direct contact to battery earth, cant get much better than that really The H4 plugs in this diagram are part of the uprated loom BTW and the 2 wires on the right (green and black) are where it connects to the OEM loom on the car
