Captain Obvious

Chuck, I hear ya. I usually just use a local notary. I only went to Harrisburg once because I had three things to do all at once and I was in a real hurry for one of them. It was way cheaper to burn the gas to drive to the PennDOT hive than to spend three times the notary fees, plus I walked out with what I needed. Yes, I had to sit in that big smelly room and I wouldn't have done for just one item, but since I had three.... I also burned an additional extra couple hours and took the guided tour of the Capitol building while I was in the area. I tried to turn the day into a tourist "experience". PS - What's it cost to blast an entire car at your guy?

Haha!! It's great when your joy is so apparent that it's infectious!

Tamo, It's yours if you want it. I'll send it to you if you would like. I'm not going to use it now that I've got my headlight relays mounted using a different scheme.

New record short, or new record long? From my experiences at the PA DMV, it could go either way...

That's great news. You must have breathed quite a sigh when you found that!

My dimmer switch (I called it the HI/LO Beam Select) is in the lower right of my schematic. As for the deployment difficulty, I'm not sure which would be easier. Assuming the new plug-in harness construction is the same difficulty for either version, that part is a tie. Then for the traditional approach you have to run a new power wire and fuse from the battery, while for what I did you have to make a couple changes to the headlight switch instead. All things considered, I think the traditional approach is a little easier, but I think the benefits to what I did were worth the small extra amount of work. I'll try to draw up another schematic of my modified 2-relay version that shows more clearly how to construct a harness.

Before I finished up my relay upgrade, I was also looking for a pre-existing box to house the relays and some fuses. Here's the best one I could come up with. It's a pretty adaptable relay/fuse box from (I think) the later model of Corolla. I like it because not only does it have room for four relays, but it also has four of the mini blade fuses. This is the only pic I have handy right now: I'll try to snap a couple better pics of the box with the lid.

Wow, that's fancy!! I too wonder how much $$. I'm pretty sure I don't want to know!

Pffffft. Flat top carbs. Didn't anyone ever tell you those things are junk? You can't go fast using them!!! That's probably why you crashed. Seriously though, I hope you're OK and it's just muscular. Necks are complicated.

You looking for something up in that corner of the car? The power wires to the ballast might suit your purpose.

Sorry, I'm not trying to muddy the waters... I'm not sure if there even exists the need for some sort of adjustment on the starter, just suggesting that it might be a possibility. Sounds to me like there's a "tight" spot once per crank revolution. I've never seen any sort of adjustment on the starter engagement, but I've never messed with the gear reduction version either. Maybe you could toss the old starter back in just to see if the clunk goes away? On edit, just saw your most recent message. I'm going to let the dust settle a little and see what happens.

That's what I was thinking. Is there any adjustment required on starter to ring gear engagement necessary? Maybe the gear lash is too tight somehow?

And don't forget to clean up all the connector contacts... Everything from the three prong connector right on the back of the bulb itself all the way back to where you're getting your power from. The last thing you want to do is burn up any of your available power in anything but the filament. You want all the power dissipated in the bulb, not in the connectors or wiring getting TO the bulb.

The spec ratings on the original headlights (or at least the ratings on the currently available versions of the single round bulbs) are 60W for the HI beam and 40W for the low beam. Those power specs are rated at a supply voltage of 12.8 Volts. AT THE BULB. So if you provide 12.8 Volts to the bulb HI beam filament, you should draw about 4.7 Amps through each filament. Some things to consider though... 1) Your alternator should be putting out greater than 12.8 Volts when the engine is running (which means the bulbs could draw a little more). 2) You'll have a significant voltage drop along the wires / connectors / relays leading to the headlights (which means the bulbs could draw a little less). 3) The bulbs have a manufacturing tolerance on the specs (which means the bulbs could draw a little more OR a little less). Bottom line? Each headlight bulb should draw about 5A when on high beam and about 3.5A on low. Were you thinking you would power the 100W driving lights from the same wire and connector?

I did lots of searching for the old Yazaki stuff and never came up with those oddball mixed sized contact connectors they used on the headlights. I dug every which way I could think of on their website as well and came up blank. I'm assuming all that stuff is so old and obsolete that they don't bother even mentioning that it ever existed. That, and from what I can gather about the company themselves, they were big OEM suppliers to the auto industry, but weren't thought of as "commercially available connector manufacturers". At least not in the US. My read is that Yazaki sold to the auto industry making harnesses and the connectors that went with them. They weren't like AMP (for example) who sold to anyone in quantities of one to ten million. Yazaki was more behind the scenes. As far as suitable connectors, I think you've highlighted the important stuff. Sealed, locking, and available. I think you may have overestimated the current needs though. With a 60W bulb you're looking at about 5A per bulb when on HI. Overkill won't hurt, but the stiffer the wire, the more difficult it is to work with.

Now that we have fuses that are hot at all times, let me shed a little light on how I modified the headlight switch to connect to ground instead of +12. First, de-solder the two original large wires from the headlight switch. Note the two shiny empty connections on the right side: Solder on a couple smaller wires with bullet connectors on the ends. One male, and one female. Doesn't matter which one goes to which post on the switch. Snap the male bullet into the large dual bullet black ground connector and leave the female hanging: Plug the male bullet from the HI/LO beam selector stalk into the female bullet and you're done. Note that the wire from the HI/LO selector used to get plugged into the large dual bullet connector on the black wire. Now instead it goes to the female bullet to the headlight OFF/ON switch: So now, with the headlight switch OFF, the HI/LO switch doesn't connect to ground, but with the headlight switch ON, it grounds the beam selector switch. While I was in there, I also took apart my headlight/parking light switch and cleaned up the contacts, but since there are lots of other threads detailing that portion, I probably don't need to go into details here. Here's a pic though, just because. This is before I cleaned up the contact:

Might depend on the year, but it could be more complicated than you make it sound. There are actually has SIX screws holding my clamshell in place.

Haha! You sure dredged that one up from obscurity! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwIQTKxiTVk Since we have permission...

So for the two versions above, one of the changes you have to make is to short around the original headlight OFF/ON switch in order to make the original fuses hot at all times. Sounds more complicated than it really is... Under the steering column, just disconnect the bullet connectors on the big W/R and RED wires from the headlight switch and then plug them together instead: Now the headlight fuses are hot at all times.

Sounds like things are going well! That's excellent. On a related note, the choke cable clamps are on the way.

I would just continue to use the one wire bullet type sender up in the thermostat housing. It's been a while since I looked at the numbers, but I believe the temperature profile for the 2-wire sensors is way wrong compared to what the gauge needs. Getting the gauge to read accurately using that other sensor would be difficult.

Great idea. Additional lighting would be a good use for the previously unused fuse. The printing and documentation would be wrong, but at least the use of the fuse would be appropriate!

Thanks for the glowing review. I've got a couple other sketches of different alternatives, each of differing levels of complexity and advantages/disadvantages. For example, a compromise on the 4-relay version above is one that uses two relays instead of four. This two relay version is simpler and would probably be what I consider the "sweet spot" between complexity and benefit. Advantages are: Uses the original fuses in the fuse block and does not require additional wires run from the battery. Original fuse block lid printing still accurate. Original fusible link still accurate as well. Fewest number of wires going to the relay block (six). Somewhat independent failure modes. One blown fuse or relay fault won't disable all the beams at the same time. Disadvantages are: More complicated than the traditional approach. Not plug-n-play. Have to modify headlight switch and jumper around headlight switch under steering column. (Much easier than it sounds!) Filament currents go through the same relay. High beams will pull almost 10A through one set of relay contacts. I really like the fact the original fuses are still used and fusible link rating is still appropriate. I also like that there is more than just one fuse for the whole headlight system as compared with the traditional approach. And other than the changes required to the headlight switch (which sound more terrifying than it really is), this version can be done with add-on harnesses which can be removed at a future date if desired. That's why I'm thinking this may be the sweet-spot between features and ease of use. When I did my 4-relay install, I had my harness ripped apart because I was also changing for the internally regulated alternator and a starter relay. Because I was in there for a couple different things I went whole hog on the 4-relay version. I figured I was in there anyway, I may as well do the best I can since I wouldn't have an opportunity like that again.

Problem is that as soon as you start making changes like that, it's no longer plug-n-play. It's just unfortunately one of the down-sides of the traditional approach. It's part of the price you pay for the plug-n-play ease of use compromise. You could (and I would recommend) that you completely remove the unused fuse from the fuse block and also replace the remaining one with a much lower amperage value (like maybe 2A). The fusible link would still be way oversized for the application, but in theory, it should only be employed with a hard power to ground short in the wiring.

I recently completed a headlight relay upgrade, but I did it differently than the traditional approach. It's a little more complicated, but I think the results were worth the effort. Basically, I used four relays instead of two so that each filament has it's own set of contacts and high currents are not shared on the same set of contacts. While I was at it, I also modified the headlight switch to connect to ground instead of connecting to power. This enabled me to reduce the number of wires needed run to the relay block. Advantages are: Uses the original fuses in the fuse block and does not require additional wires run from the battery. Original fuse block lid printing still accurate. Original fusible link still accurate as well. Independent failure modes. One blown fuse or relay fault won't turn out all the lights at the same time. Each filament has it's own relay minimizing losses in the relay contacts. High beam currents are not shared. Fewest number of wires going to the relay block (six). Disadvantages are: More complicated than the traditional approach. Not plug-n-play. Have to modify headlight switch and jumper around headlight switch under steering column. (Much easier than it sounds!) Have to run additional R/B wire out to one of the headlights. Here's a schematic of how my headlights are now connected: I took some current and voltage readings before and after the upgrade and I'll get them into presentable form and post the numbers. The results were illuminating.