Thread: question on driving light wiring

Question, in near the headlight of a 1994 & 1995 discovery is unused wires with a terminal with 3 vertical connections in a row. What is this for??? A different style headlight bulb, that can also be used in the headlight??? A connector for if we add fog lights or driving lights to our disco??? Or some other obscure use, such as for the sensor if we do have air bags fitted??? Would like to know?

We are fitting an old set of Cibie Super Oscars [sadly reflectors are not very good, but cannot yet afford Lightforce 170’s with HID—my preference--so will happily stick with these Super Oscars. May look at re-chroming these Super Oscar reflectors at a later date] onto our Disco, and so I am wondering if suitable wiring for our diving lights is already there in the wiring harness, or do we have to add all the wiring for our driving lights. Both our Discoverys do have this unused wire & terminal.

Can we buy driving light switches to match the existing switches down the left side of the instrument panel, to replace those blank switches that are there, to be used for our Super Oscars. As we get lots of fog, we may also add fog lights later so may need two switches if the answer to the next question is “no.”
So if we add fog lights, will the switch for rear fogs also do front fogs at the same time without problems, or should we have a separate switch???

I think we do have a pair of Hella fog-lights in our shed that we took of a car that we previously sold, before selling it. We do often drive in fog where we live, like 80% of mornings during 6 months of the year, but as that is mainly daytime we use headlights so that others will see us, and also drive in fog on a number of evenings???

G'day there.
Not sure whether the 1996 Discovery wiring differs to the '94/95 models, but I have stumbled across a few things in the past week on mine which may be of help to you (this is my first Discovery and have only had it a few months, so I'm still learning as I go).

If the unused 3 wire terminal has a rubber boot on the back of it and the wire colours under that boot are Blue/yellow; Red/black, and Black, this will be for the headlight levelling.

Do you happen to have another pair of wires tucked in below the headlights, probably coloured Blue/purple and Black? If you do, these will be for the front fog lights (according to the circuit diagrams).

When I bought my Disco, it came with a genuine Land Rover driving light on the nudge bar. This was hooked up to a factory connector which was tucked in behind the grille. It's wire colours are Blue/yellow and Black. Might be worthwhile checking behind your grille for any hidden connectors. If you have them, chances are there's a relay connected already (mine was under the bonnet instead of under the dash with the factory relays, but the way it's wired in makes me think it's not from the factory - but I could be wrong).


In regards to your switch query, I have two matching fog light switches on the instrument panel. One powers the rear snow lights and the other appears to be wired in to the front fog circuit (yet to confirm, as I am not getting power to the fog light harness, and when I bought the truck I thought it was set up for the driving lights). I have since located the driving light circuit - hidden behind the drop down access panel for the fuse box & wiring. This had no switch connected, but was terminated with a plug that fitted the fog switches (hence my thoughts that this wasn't factory fitted after all).

The reason for my above rambling is that when I went looking to fit this into the instrument panel in one of the blank holes I learned something interesting: Each switch on its respective side can only fit into a particular hole, as each hole has a notch cut into it and for a switch to fit there, it must have the matching "key" to slide into the notch (for example, I can't remove the rear windscreen washer and wiper switches out of their original positions and swap them over). Also, each connector / terminal that plugs into the rear of the switch has it's own set of notches, probably to prevent accidental interchanging. Even though your truck is a year or so older than mine, I am guessing the instrument panel will be set up the same.

For your fog lights, just check behind your instrument panel, on the right side for a plug which fits the fog light switch (unplug the rear fog switch and see). According to the owner's manual though, the front fog light switch (if fitted) is supposed to be positioned beside the hazard lights switch. Mine has no spare harness in that area, but it would be worthwhile checking yours just in case. If you have the harness & plug there, you're laughing!

For your driving lights, what I would suggest doing is visiting the wreckers and, if a Disco there has switches in spots where your truck has none, remove the switch, the plug and part of the wiring. I have read elsewhere on this site is that you may be able to take the head of the switches and swap them over, so any switch controlling lights has a light symbol. That will keep everything looking right. The reason for taking part of the wrecked truck's wiring is that it may be simpler to solder or crimp your driving light wiring to the cut off length of wire rather than try to mess around with the plug terminals.

This is what I will be looking into when I get around to fitting spotties to my truck. Sounds like we both have the same idea of wanting the end result to look like it came from the factory.

Apologies if I have rambled on here. This is my first ever post / reply.
Hopefully what I have written can help you out.


Cheers,
Darren.