Adventures in relay box perfection...

[dustinjorge]

I hate mounting relays under my hood without 'doing it right', so I spent some time down at pick 'n pull lurking around looking for the perfect relay box.

I'm wiring up my bumper lights (4 hella 500ffs) and in order to not have to cover 2 of them and still be legal here in WA, I needed a pretty specific circuit. The idea is to have 2 fogs on with the low beams and 2 driving lights on with the high beams, with that functionality toggled by the stock fog switch. Also, my switch panel will have an override that will illuminate all 4 at once.

So my circuit needed 3 relays and a diode... my search turned up this:

The box above holds any combination of relays and diodes up to 4 and came from an early 90s Aerostar (Driver side fender by firewall). I don't know which year, but when I went back to get a second one (too perfect) I noticed that some had them some didn't, so it was a matter of finding the right junker. Came apart pretty easily:

Now the problem is that I don't want to splice wires... so I need some connectors to snap in. Ford does not sell them, grrrr. After A LOT of looking around, I ended up at the Napa warehouse where I turned up these.

They're not a perfect fit but they're close enough to work very well... but the little 'bendy tab' is pretty flimsy. It likes to bend when pushing in the relay and that's no good. A little solder reinforced it just fine:

With that problem solved... now I need to make those pretty OEM style crimps on these connectors. I bought my crimping tool at Napa (overpriced), since I didn't feel like driving back to the warehouse if I couldn't find it elsewhere (Napa had 2 in stock in Western Washington).

The wiring done...

Added a pigtail from a <95 distribution box, some loom and friction tape, and it's ready to go...

I'm pretty damn happy with the result.

 

[FIND]

Good job. Those crimps are nice and clean and it will all look quite professional when you're done.

 

[Dano!]

Here is another place you can get your wire clips, i don't know how much they were at NAPA, but this is where i got mine. just in case someone else is looking for them.

www.clipsandfasteners.com

looks nice, very professional, i like it. for my relays i found the female wire terminals, and managed to find some of the clips that actually snap onto the relay, but i haven't found anything to use as a relay box, thanks for posting.

 

[dustinjorge]

Thanks guys.

The relay box is very similar to the ones in 2nd gen up by the fender wells (more options for grabbing one)... and the clips work pretty well. The only thing is they don't sit up as high as the oem clips and they rotate slightly but they still have plenty of contact with the relay terminals and it's still very easy to push a relay through the top of the box. The solder reinforcement on the flimsy leg is imperative.

In fact, these clips could be used in the distribution box as well. Pretty cool to get that close to factory setup.

At any rate, I got everything installed this weekend. The light circuit worked great, but I forgot that the fogs turn off with the high beams when I designed the circuit, so I had to jumper the parking lights to power the fog light relay instead of the low beams on my '95 ( There isn't a toggle relay on the '95, the high-beam/fogs off functionality actually works through the multifunction switch on the dash. ) so that was kind of a bugger.

Fogs are lower set (Hella 500FF Fog) on with low beams, Upper set are Hella 500FF Driving Lights on with high beams. All 4 are on with override switch.

Next is the (4) pro-comps on the roof

 

[Dano!]

I like it, i will be on the hunt tommorow at pick n pull. 1/3 off sale woo!