Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 10:38:39 +0200
Reply-To: Calle Fallberg <calle.fallberg@TELIA.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Calle Fallberg <calle.fallberg@TELIA.COM>
Subject: Re: Driving Lights Circuit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Hi Steve !
Since living in Sweden Iīm not familiar with your "gauge" system so I cant
give you specific advice on the wires to use .
But keep them as thick and short as possible !
FWIW I found out that a good place for the relays was behind the glovebox,
at least on my vanagon I was able to (gently) bend the restrictors a bit
thus being able to take the box out of itīs hinges .
Then I attached the relays upside down on top of the protective beam but
take a good measure so that there are space enough to open/close the
glovebox !
This made it possible to run the main power from the battery under the
carpet and it was rather easy to find out where behind the grille to drill
the holes for the wire to run down to the lights ( check on both sides
before you drill !! - a good advice from the carpenting trade is "measure
twice cut once" ;) ) .
You also get a dry place for the relay which will make it more trouble free
.
Donīt forget the rubber grommets wherever you drill a hole and feed wire
through - the insulation wear down quickly against the metal !!
I use a wire mounted fuse and itīs as close to the battery as possible.
(good protection and easy to get to under the pass. seat)
The lights are grounded separately on a bolt behind the front grille, no
need to feed the wires back to the relay !
And I always put the switch on the ground wire, easy to feed just one wire
from the relay and you also get a good grounding point somewhere behind the
dash....
The only drawback is the unability to put indication lamps on it but you
learn which is on and off ( and hopefully the lights are powerful enough to
be visible too :))
If the lights wont work the most common misstake is BAD ground so check that
first!
And if you run into trouble, P-mail me and Iīll try to help
Good Luck
Calle
calle.fallberg@telia.com
PS
If you want to read more about lights Iīd recommend
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/home.html
lotīs of info on light upgrade too
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Russell" <thenewf1@TELUS.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 12:54 AM
Subject: Driving Lights Circuit
Hi Volks,
I've been stalling on installing a set of driving lights on our '84 westy
for some time because of my limited electrical knowledge, but recently I
decided to tackle it. I did some reading on electrical and now I think I can
do it. Sounds pretty simple since all I want to do is install the lights on
an independent circuit that I manually control with a switch. So correct me
if I'm wrong, but I just need to have power from the battery run through a
fuse, switch, relay and then to the loads with everything grounded and I'm
good to go. Any tips? Is there a specific order things need to be in in the
circuit? Should I use a specific gauge of wire or type of relay? Any help
would be greatly appreciated as I'm pretty green at this.
Thanks,
Steve ('84 westy - Moaning Myrtle)
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