Thread: RRC Headlight Relays - or is it D1's?

I didn't really thank it, but that's OK. It's just the bloody page was moving up and down.
YES. YES. YES.
and YES.

Regards Philip A

Mine has what looks to be either a factory loom ... or very well made aftermarket headlight wiring loom. It plugs into the drivers side bulb connector and runs wiring back to a bunch of 3 relays. These then drive the headlights through new headlight connectors (I reckon it might have even had a land rover label on the "add on" wiring loom). You need to make sure the 3 relays are identical. I had big issues with low beam disappearing as feedback through the relays didn't allow them to switch properly.

I find the land rover headlights fine.... Personally I wouldn't bother changing to LED's (givne the lights fitted are reliable and work quite ok............ I don't trust cheap LEDs at all to continue to work, especially somewhere critical like headlights!).

seeya,
Shane L.

Not sure about the fire risk, but rewired the headlights on my old rangie ( and discos) with relays and better wire size. Picked up 2 volts at the globe and made a very noticeable difference to light output.

I have a relay for every filament in the H 4's (i.e. 4 total) in Wipac lenses with big power wire, switching wire is just the old loom.

Works well, DL.

Originally Posted by gavinwibrow

....

I've also scored a set of LED headlights which horror of horrors I'm thinking of trying out, ....

Hopefully they're good ones and you'll love 'em.
If they're bad ones, I reckon you'll hate them.

But if good and you keep them, I don't think you'll need to touch the wiring.

I did this to my D1 a while back now and wouldn't have it any other way now.

I measured current draw on one headlight and found just a tad over 1 amp.
That was for either low beam or high beam .. same draw.

Taking any errors into account(even say 10% error) .. then max it would have been was 1.3 amp per globe.
Can't remember exactly but I think each fuse for the headlights are 20 amp(reds).

With the old std globes that desperately needed updated wiring, I used to see about 13.5v on the volt meter prior to changing headlights and tailights to LEDs(in fact LEDs all round other than the high mount brake light .. only to keep the cruise control operational!)
Now with LEDs all round volts stay at 13.9-14v with lights on.
Just an interesting parallel observation.

Originally Posted by AK83

With the old std globes that desperately needed updated wiring, I used to see about 13.5v on the volt meter prior to changing headlights and tailights to LEDs(in fact LEDs all round other than the high mount brake light .. only to keep the cruise control operational!)
Now with LEDs all round volts stay at 13.9-14v with lights on.
Just an interesting parallel observation.

13.5v at the globe is good, my rangie was down to 11.5v all std (battery voltage 14v), and i have seen lower on different (older) cars.

Hey Gavin
I put relays in my 89 and then fitted 90/130 H 4 globes..lots a
of light and won't stuff up my light switch.
I had one stuff up using 55/100 globes without the relays. Found a burnt rivet that also melted the plastic, this after about 6 months of it being all ok...but it wasn't ,so the relays went in.
I also converted my fog lights to 100watts each with a relay as well and they come on with the spotlights and 130 high beams.

Originally Posted by Rick1970

13.5v at the globe is good, my rangie was down to 11.5v all std (battery voltage 14v), and i have seen lower on different (older) cars.

Actually, my voltage comments came out ambiguous.

The voltage I see is on the battery volt meter.
That is, in normal day time running I see about 14.2-ish volts most of the time.
With electrical stuff on, voltage at the battery drops .. eg. heater fan on, wipers on, etc.

So my comments were about voltage/voltage drop at the battery with led lights vs halogens.

Only test I did at the lights was to run ammeter while LEDs were on to see if they were 13.5w as rated ..
I saw about 1.1(something) amps. DMM is supposed to be 0.01amp accurate, which means that 1.1xxx amps I saw were probably accurate, maybe a touch more, maybe less, but the 13.5w rating claimed sounds about right.
Compare that to a std 55w halogen (4x more) then the LED places much less stress on what looks(and many find out) is kind'a fragile wiring.