Hella foglight install....AHHHH!!!!

[Turner55]

OK, i bought a pair of hella 530's(i think) and am trying to install them...i have them mounted on top of the bumper but they dont work...i have the wires all hooked up, except for this one green wire that the instructions say is supposed to go to the headlight? where am i supposed to hook it on the headlight? i'm stumped

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'93 explorer sport 4x4

 

[rpenner54]

Its the wire that makes it so you can turn the lights on. Without that hooked up with the wiring harness supplied with the Hellas they will not work.



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Ryan Penner
1992 Explorer Sport Modified

 

[Turner55]

how do you connect the wire to the headlights?...i connect it to the switch, and where do i connect it to the headlight?

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'93 explorer sport 4x4

 

[rpenner54]

When I had them installed I connected mine to the positive wire coming out of the light it self. I just spliced into that wire.



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Ryan Penner
1992 Explorer Sport Modified

 

[Bill Kemp]

Hay Turner, Sounds like the green wire is the one that you will get your power from.
All you need to do is to decide when you want the lights to be able to come on, that is be switched on.
If you want them to be turned on anytime the key is on hook that wire to the windshield wipers hot wire. Or with the parking lights, hook to the pkng lgt hot wire or with the headlights use the low beam hot wire. I hooked mine to the wipers cause I use them as daytime running lights when I feel in the mood. However I noticed from earlier posts that some states get hot if they come on without the headlights being on. Good luck...

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Bill Kemp 96 XLT 4x4 4. OHV

 

[Turner55]

i dont know much about this stuff, i dont know where to put the green wire, i want them to come on when i have the parking lights on, the low beams, and the high beams. i dont know how i'm supposed to put the wire w/the whatever wire i need to put it with. i have a red wire that i connected straight with the positive end of the battery; a black wire that connects the lights to the little box that the hellas came with; a blue grounding wire for the box, both the lights, and the switch; a yellow wire that connects the switch to the little box; and the infamous green wire which i have no idea where to put it...i'm sorry if i'm slow to understanding...it's just that i dont understand

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'93 explorer sport 4x4

 

[Bill Kemp]

First of all the connecting to the other wires is done with a 3M product called 'Quick Connect" It is a plactic gizmo that allowes you to tap into a wire and splice in your other (green) wire.
I'm not sure of the color of the parking light wire on your veh. buy I think it is the brown wire of the three that go into the parking lights. Does this help?

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Bill Kemp 96 XLT 4x4 4. OHV

 

[Turner55]

sure does...now, i dont really know what the quick connect thing is...where do you get it?
just to be sure: i just run the green wire down to the parking light and connect the green wire to the brown wire with the quick connect thingy and then connect the other half of the green wire to the switch...now i need to know what the quick connect thing is.
another thing: i just disconnected the + battery cable and stuck the red wire underneath and then put the thing back on it...is that what i was supposed to do?
thanks for all the help

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'93 explorer sport 4x4

 

[Seth]

I believe that is the wire that goes to "switched power." I have PIAA lights but it should be the same thing. I ended up bringing the wire into the cab with the switch but i brought that wire up around to the fuse box. I looked in my manual and found out which fuse goes to the lights. I took that wire, wrapped it around one end of the fuse prongs and pushed it back in. Now whenever I turn on my lights I can use my PIAA's.

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Seth M.
97 XLT 4X4 4.0L SOHC

 

[Tate Myrick]

I have not installed PIAA, but I am pretty sure I know what the wire is for. As you have probably gained from the various postings it needs a power supply. In wiring your lights, you might have used a relay when you wired in the switch. If you have installed sound systems you should know about the relays. If you want a leason in relays let us know, but simply this wire needs power. You can hook it directly to your battery. Draw back: You forget your lights are on and drain the battery. Another draw back: local law states that the regular lights have to be lit in order for you to use the auxilary. You could wire it to the parking lamps (which are on during bright light so the PIAA will not go off) or any other source of power you choose. I am not near my Explorer, but I think it should be fairly easy to be able to tell what the problem is. My suggestion is that you make sure you know what wire goes to what place and test them. If you cut a wire you should not have you can splice it back together. I hope this helps.

 

[Turner55]

I think i'm going to connect them to the parking lights...now all i need to know is how i do that.

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'93 explorer sport 4x4

 

[Cameron]

Turner55,

2 things;

First, you said you mounted the fog lights on top of your bumper? Fog lights need to be as low as possible. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the amber color of most fog lights that give them their "functionality", rather it’s the shape of the beam and the location of the lights. True fog lights like the Hellas will have a wide flat projection and should be place as low to the ground as possible. The idea is to light the road under the fog so you can see it through the fog. That being said, on with how to get them to work:

You should have a manual for your truck. Helms at www.helmsinc.com has an electrical manual for your truck and cost about $30.00. The manual will tell you what color the 93 Explorer used for the power wire to the driving lights. If you don’t want to fork over the $30.00 or are impatient like me, you can get a voltmeter (no garage is complete without one) and locate our parking light. Turn them on and, with the voltmeter, test to see which line is the 12-volt positive. When you find it, tap into it with the green wire supplied. I did a similar install with my Hella 5000. Except I tapped them into the high beams. That way, whenever I turn on the bright lights, the Hellas come on.

Hope this helped you out.


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Rock'n 97 Sport 4X4

 

[mattadams]

It can get kind of tricky. You would actually have to find the wire that leads into the parking lights, figure out which one is positive (use a voltmeter if you have one) and splice into it (which if you don't know how to do that, just strip away a certain portion of the covering , twist the green wire around the exposed portion of the parking light wire, and seal up with electrical tape, thats the crude way of doing it, you can also buy a 3-way connector that would require cutting/reconnecting). I have my switch wire on my PIAA's (the equivalent to your green wire) wired in through my radio, same basic principle, it will just come onw hen the car is on.

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Matt Adams
94 Explorer 4-door nick-named "Tippy"
http://bart.is-s.com/~explorers/explorer/explorer.html

 

[mrjones98e]

hey there is supposed to be a wire clip that you clam on the wire going to your lights and to the green wire , what it does is actually cuts your headlight wires and clamps on them and clamps on the the green wire too, but you need that little clamp to do it , or you could just splice the headlight wire and black tape it , just the other way looks more profesional, I installed my hella black majiks ,and they had the same setup

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Ryan Jones
98 eddie baurer 4x4
2 inch lift
32x11.50 buckshots
manik brush gaurd and go rhino tail light gaurds
hella black majik driving light
Surco 45x60 safari rack
jbl door speakers and kicker fifteen

92 explorer with two inches of lift
30x9.50 mud kings

mrjones98e@hotmail.com
http://msnhomepages.talkcity/BoxStreatBlvd/mrjones98e/

 

[Turner55]

I DID IT!! here's how i did it: i had some ugly foglights that i've been waiting for some excuse to get new ones and then they quit working...and when i took all the wires out of that one i noticed that one went to the fusebox. before i got into all that splicing and tapping and stuff, i just tried to put one of those female connector things on the green wire and hook it up to the thing on the fusebox where the old one was. i couldn't believe it, they lit up! they look great...i have a question though...the hellas came with a switch with only 2 prongs or whatever on the back of it, but in the instructions it had a ground wire, the yellow wire, and the green wire all coming off of it...i didnt know what to do, but since i already had the KC switch for my old foglights(IT has 3 prongs) i just used that one. i dont know why hella sent me the wrong switch.
thanks for all the help guys, i really appreciate it

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'93 explorer sport 4x4

 

[mattadams]

its possible Hella sent you the wrong switch, I wouldn't put it past em. I remember on my set of HEllas receiving a ball of multi-colored wires, a baggie full of connectors, and the lights, as well as instructions that were EXTREMELY non-useful to someone installing lights for the first time. Now if I tried to attempt it I probably could but it wouldn't compare to the speed I can get a set of PIAA's wired in in... lets see my last set I had wired in in about 30 minutes, which included running the power wires, getting throught he body of teh vehicle, installing the switch, and cleaning up the wiring. THat doesn't include MOUNTING the lgihts, that took about another 10 minutes Dead Link Removed.

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Matt Adams
94 Explorer 4-door nick-named "Tippy"
http://bart.is-s.com/~explorers/explorer/explorer.html

 

[Turner55]

well, this IS my first time to install somethin like this and i dont know where i'd be without this site. hella gives me this 2 sided sheet of instructions...very hard to understand. let's see, i've been workin on these lights since sunday, and just finished...so that's a pretty long time...oh well, thanks for the help