Date:         Fri, 6 Dec 2002 01:44:07 -0800
Reply-To:     rdfreeman@MSN.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Bob Freeman <rdfreeman@MSN.COM>
Subject:      Hella Driving lights and High Powered headlights
Comments: To: dan@OFFTHEHILL.ORG
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Dan - Just curious if you had any tips installing and wiring the Hella driving lights.  Me not being a wiring genius it is a little daunting. I bought some Hella 550s, the rectangular version of your 500's.  Did you drill the bumpers?  I hate to do that so will build some clamps for them.  How did you feed the wires in from the outside?   I will wire them separately to their own switch in the dash.  The Bus Barn has an official VW switch just for this purpose.   

By the way, I have also installed the high power headlight kit from www.GoWesty.com.  It gives you 160 watts of low beam and 400 watts of high beam and has its own relay to prevent burning up your headlight switch (been there, done that), but I still want the driving lights for better low beam.  The kit was pretty easy to wire.  You just have to take the fuse box loose and plug all the wires in to the right places.  Oh, and you do have to cut the two wires that go to the headlights and crimp a different wire to one of them.  That was the hardest to make myself do.  I was not 100% sure I had the right one, but it worked out ok.   

And another item I just bought is a red rear Hella fog lamp, so they can see you sooner when they are barreling along behind you in the fog.  I knew about this but looked high and low for it and finally found it here:  http://www.susquehanna.com/susq/hella/rearfog.htm

I got the 81102 and will probably wire it up with the driving lights.

Cheers
Robert D Freeman  
North Bend, WA   
91 Westy (and 5 other VWs '50 thru '65)