HELP me my lights don't work - SRT Forums

craigswardmtb · 02-27-2004, 05:40 PM

I just went to install my phillips 4300K HID conversion kit. I got the last one that was in stock at autodirectsave.com. The package came the other day and it looked a little tattered. The cases that held the bulbs were not sealed and the ballasts looked like they had been used. I figured this might have been a demo kit they were using, but either way everything looked to be in near excellent shape. Plus i got a pretty good price so i wasn't that upset.

Anyways i installed everything. Mounted the ballasts, hooked up all the wiring, plugged in the relays, and lastly i connected the positive line to the battery, and grounded the negative line to a piece of metal on the body of the car. The install instructions stated that i should test one light at a time but i really saw no need too. Aside from that i followed the directions to a tee.
I went to turn on the lights and they did not even flicker. NOTHING...
I checked the two 20 amp fuses that came incorporated into the new lighting wiring harness, and they looked fine. I also opened the fuse box in the cabin and pulled the fuse for the lo beams, i think it was number 17 on the panel. It is a 10 amp fuse and it appeared to be fine. I did not check the 15 amp hi beam fuse but i figured that would not be affected because i did not even try the hi beams.
Are there any other fuses that could have gone bad and created this situation?? Can a fuse appear to be fine and in tact but really be bad??
Could me not testing each lamp individually affected something???

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

joeykunz · 02-27-2004, 07:31 PM

Hmm that’s weird. Yeah I'd check all the fuses first, then check the polarity of everything and make sure all the wiring is good. If that doesn’t work I'll pull it out and hook the ballast directly to the battery and just test to see if the ballast or bulb is bad. You really should of tested one first before you installed everything. When I put my 2nd kit in for the fogs, I had to upgrade the fuses higher. I "think" I went up to a 25 or 30 amp, not sure without looking. They did come on for a sec though before the fuse went out. I know with both of my kits I did not need to use any relays or anything.

craigswardmtb · 02-27-2004, 07:35 PM

yeah i should of tested it, oh well. Live and learn.
i am going to go pick up a 20 amp fuse and replace the 10 amp in the cabin fuse box. Then i will take the volt meter to it and test if i have power at the relays and the ballasts. Is it mandatory to replace the lo beam fuse in the cabin with a 20amp?

How do you hook the ballast up directly to the battery?

joeykunz · 02-27-2004, 07:40 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by craigswardmtb

yeah i should of tested it, oh well. Live and learn.
i am going to go pick up a 20 amp fuse and replace the 10 amp in the cabin fuse box. Then i will take the volt meter to it and test if i have power at the relays and the ballasts. Is it mandatory to replace the lo beam fuse in the cabin with a 20amp?

How do you hook the ballast up directly to the battery?

Yeah I know the 10 amp is way to low. I don’t have a srt-4 though so I can't say for sure what fuses are what. By hooking it up to the battery I mean just bypassing all the wiring to rule it out of the problem. But if you are testing the connections for power with a voltmeter then that’s the same thing really. Let me know what happens.

Jerm · 02-27-2004, 09:51 PM

check the ground

craigswardmtb · 02-29-2004, 10:52 PM

Well i took my test light to the HID kit yesterday. It appears that i am getting power to the relay, and everything is grounded properly.
After that though the blue wire that goes from the ballast to the relay does not have power. So i guess the ballasts are just not getting power somehow.
I have a feeling that the wiring harness that came with the kit was incorrectly wired. The problem may be where the wiring harness mates with the factory 3 pronged plug. The top prong and the right prong wires have diodes and come together to a single ground wire (grey) that then goes to the relay. The left prong has a yellow black stripe wire that goes to the relay. Maybe this visual will work, the dash marks are the prongs, and the color arrangement is how the wiring exits out the back of the plug:
- grey diode
- - yellow grey diode

Is this how your guys HIDs are wired from the wiring harness. they then enter the 4 pronged plug that mates with your relay. Here is another poor attempt at representing the backside of the plug of the relay:
- - red grey
- - blue yellow

The red wire then goes to a fuse then to the positive side of the battery. The blue wire goes to the ballast, which i believe is the power to the ballast. And is the wire that is not showing voltage when i put a test light to it. The blue wire that goes to the ballast is accompanied by a black ground wire.

Any of you that have put HID's on the that came with a kit, is this how your wiring was done?
I think the problem areas could be the wires coming from the 3 prong plug that mates to the factory plug, and/or where those wires enter the relay?
Any insight by you guys would be totally appreciated. I want to have an idea what i am switching before i go changing wire positions.

Does anyone know what each prong on the factory 3 prong plug represents?

blackenedsrt-4 · 02-29-2004, 11:18 PM

try replacing the relay, it may be bad

blackenedsrt-4 · 02-29-2004, 11:29 PM

which wire has power to it when the headlight switch is on - grey or yellow, forget about the blue and red for now.

craigswardmtb · 03-01-2004, 09:05 AM

The yellow has power to the relay, i think. I may have to go double check that though.
I can't imagine it is a relay problem only because it is the same case for both lights, and in turn both relays.

blackenedsrt-4 · 03-01-2004, 03:26 PM

Ok, I'll try and descirbe it the best I can.

First thing - look at the relay plug and socket are there numbers on it?

Second thing - If there are numbers on it, do the numbers below match the wires

Wire to numbers
30 - red
87 - blue
85 - yellow
86 - grey

On the factory plug, the two wires with diodes should be wired to
one to the purple wire - left head lamp - low beam
one to the red&orange wire - left head lamp - hi beam
one to the red&orange wire - right head lamp - hi beam
one to the purple&red wire - right head lamp - low beam
The black wire on both sides is ground

If the diode wires are going to the grey wire, then the yellow wire should be going to a ground.

I think your wires are put together wrong. Please tell me the if there are numbers on the relay,that in it's self will help a bunch.

Also there are a total of 4 fuses the control the factory lights, make sure you check them all. hope this helps

joeykunz · 03-01-2004, 06:36 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong but why are you using the relay's? I know I didn't have to use the relays that came with both my kits. They were optional. I don’t think the other guys that have hid's on the srt-4 had to use the relays either. (Again I might be wrong) I just plugged the ballast into the wire that goes to the bulbs then mounted everything. Only took like 30-45 minutes max for everything.

craigswardmtb · 03-01-2004, 09:52 PM

Blackened SRT4, i will check the factory plug to see if there are numbers on it tommorrow morning and post back. But i think you may be right, and the wires may be mixed up.

JoeyKunz, the relays are more of a safety measure so you don't fry your factory wiring because of the excess amperage. During warm up of the HID's it draws much more current through the wiring, the relay is a switch that does not allow all of the extra current to fry your wiring. Once the HID bulb is warmed up it operates with less current than your stock setup.. You may want to look into using a relay. Unless you know something i don't.

I have pretty much ruled out that the relay is bad because i got one of the lamps to light today. I put the drivers side lamp in and hooked up all of the wiring the same way that i did before. I turned on the lights and nothing. SO i decided to try my hi beams, and what do you know it ignited. So i thought i had it figured out and i would just have to deal with having the HID's ignited by running my hi beams. So i wired up the other side and tightied up the engine bay and went to turn on my lights, and nothing happened. I checked all of my fuses, i think. I checked the (2) 20 amp fuses for the power wire to the battery, fine. I checked the (2) 10 amp low beam fuses in the in cabin fuse box, fine. Then i checked the 15 amp high beam fuse and that was fine. I think thats all of them. Plus i plugged the halogen back in and that worked fine.

So i am at a loss.
Why the hell would it light once and then not work under the same circumstances? Maybe the two diode wires are mixed up between the hi and low beams.
I'll mess with it tommorrow. If any of you have any suggestions, aside from throwing the whole system off my damn deck, i would appreciate it.

blackenedsrt-4 · 03-02-2004, 03:28 AM

Nevermind about looking at the numbers, you varified that the relay works.

Look at the harness that came with the kit. With it plugged into the factory plug, tell me which colored wires (factory side)are connected to the wires with the diodes(kit harness side)

With out me looking at it, netheir wire with the diodes should be wired to the black wire (ground for factory plug). If there is one attached to the black wire, remove it and attach it to the other wire. One diode wire to each colored wire.

The wiring has to be exactly the same for both relays.

Your hids will then light up with the low&hi beam switch. You may have to upgrade the low beam fuses to 15amp each.

One last thing...did the kit instructions say the hids are suppose to light on low beam? or is it both low&hi?

If this don't work, I am gonna need pics of the whole thing to help you out.

craigswardmtb · 03-02-2004, 09:28 AM

you pinpointed the problem BlackenedSRT.

Both relays are good to go. The factory plug side was wired wrong. One of the diode wires was wired to the black ground wire for both lamps. I will have to pull the diode wire and the yellow wire and swap them. That is odd that it turned on once though.

Will i need new hardwear once i pull the wires, or should the connections stay in tact when i yank them out with a pair of needle nose pliers? Will i need a new plug? if i do need new hardwear and a plug should they have everything at Radio Shack?

Thanks.

blackenedsrt-4 · 03-02-2004, 02:50 PM

Don't pull any wires out with a pair of needle noso pliers, you will probly trash the plug. The best thing to do is, just unsolder the wire from the black wire and solder it to the other wire that does not have a diode wire attached to it. Make sure you solder the connections, usings crimps may give you problems down the line. use heat shrink over the wires. Solder,solder gun/iron and heat shrink you can get at Radioshack.

The plug on the kit harness that plugs into the factory plug, look at it real closely. That plug should have spade prongs, if you look at the prong closely you should see a little tab sticking up about halfways back on the prong. you can take a paper clip or something that small and push it down and pull the wire at the same time..it should come out.

don't change any of the wiring on the harness, just move the one wire we been talking about. By swapping wires on the plug, you take the chance it really screwing something up i.e the hid's get damaged or you start a electrical fire somewhere in the wires.

If for some reason the plug get's damage, try autozone,pepboys,kragen and then radioshack. the autoparts stores will have a better chance on having that plug and solder the connections.