I need help. Someone check me please

I wired up my fog lights according to the directions in a kit I have but they're not working. It's seems like the lights aren't getting power. The switch does seem to get power though.

I have the black power wire hooked up to terminal 30/51 on the relay. The other end is hooked up to the battery. Terminal 86 I have grounded on the battery. Terminal 85 is hooked up to the switch. Terminal 87 is hooked to the fog lights. The fog lights are grounded on the bumper beam and the body.

The switch's power is hooked up to the wiper motor power. The switch is grounded using a ground wire from the fog wiring harness. The switch seems to be getting power as it lights up.

I got a new relay and tried that to make sure the relay wasn't bad but no dice. I'm not an electrical engineer but I can't figure out any reason why it shouldn't be working. I'm confounded.

 

[DeRocha]

For reference I have attached a picture I made of a typical Driving or Fog light wiring schematic. As you can see it is very similiar to your instructions. I have read your post and your wiring seams to be correct except I cannot determine if your switch is sending power or ground to the relay. The relay only needs 2 wires to make it work (click) 85-power, and 86-ground. The other wires 30 and 87 just sit there and get connected together when the relay is powered.

To Test the relay:
1) Fog switch to OFF (we want to eliminate it from our test)
2) Directly connect a wire (small 18 ga is fine) from the battery to terminal 85 on the relay. If you hear a click the fogs should come on (this indicates your switch is wired incorrectly to send ground instead of power to the relay). Recheck your switch wiring and sent power to the relay. If you don't hear a click recheck terminal 86 to ensure good ground contack is being made. You can also check/verify your other relay is working by just connected 12v to term 85 and ground to 85. An audible click indicates it is working. Post back with your testing results...

 

[jimbo74]

this might help http://www.the12volt.com/relays/relays.asp

 

[jimbo74]

this might also help http://www.4x4wire.com/tech/electrical/zj_lighting/schematic 11.jpg

 

[briwayjones]

To Test the relay:
1) Fog switch to OFF (we want to eliminate it from our test)
2) Directly connect a wire (small 18 ga is fine) from the battery to terminal 85 on the relay. If you hear a click the fogs should come on (this indicates your switch is wired incorrectly to send ground instead of power to the relay). Recheck your switch wiring and sent power to the relay. If you don't hear a click recheck terminal 86 to ensure good ground contack is being made. You can also check/verify your other relay is working by just connected 12v to term 85 and ground to 85. An audible click indicates it is working. Post back with your testing results...

I tested the relay. And it works. I would hear a click when I put power to 85 and it didn't matter how the switch was wired or if it was even connected. And the fogs never came on.

 

[DeRocha]

Ok, the click indicates the relay is working and power from term 30 is being sent to the fogs via term 87. In most cases the problem is related to improper grounding. Attach a temp wire from the neg battery post to the fog ground. This will ensure the fogs are getting all the power they need to fire up. Repeat the relay test...

 

[briwayjones]

I already had a ground from the battery to relay. It was attached to the ground pole on the relay which is 86, is that what you meant?

I just did some more testing and got them to light up finally. Power from the battery is connected to 30. Battery is grounded to 86. I plugged in power from the wiper motor to 85 and they finally worked. But this of course eliminates the switch.

 

[DeRocha]

Nope I was refering to the blue ground wires directly coming out of the lights. You already indicated the relay worked by sending power from the battery to the fogs... Your wiper power statement has me concerned that terminal 30 is not connected directly to the battery as in the picture (It needs to be).

 

[briwayjones]

Now that I look at it again it seems to me that the 30 is working. It seems it needed the power from the wiper motor to trigger the relay to connect the 30 to the 87 giving them power. Taking that into consideration it seems then that when I have the switch hooked up 85 is not getting the power from the switch which is coming from the wiper motor?

 

[DeRocha]

Your assumption makes alot of sense. As such the Headlight switch is the prefered way of getting power for a fog switch. You can either tap into the parking light or headlight wire. This will enable the lights on warning chime to function as well as any auto power off feature employed by your vehicle. I would avoid taping into constant power as it will drain your battery if you accidentally forget and leave them on (which happens all the time to people who wire them in this fashion).

 

[briwayjones]

I actually tapped into the wiper because I wanted independent control of the fog lights away from the headlights. Any more ideas on why it's not working? The only thing I can think of at this point is the switch is not wired right? It seems to me the only way to wire it though. I'm using a stock fog switch which has four poles. I don't know for a fact what each pole is but I was going by the dummy harness that's in there. Wire 2 on the harness is black which I'm assuming is ground. Wire 4 is bigger than the rest of the wires so I'm assuming that's power. Which when I use that for power the indicator light on the switch lights up. If I hook the power wire up to 3 on the switch the light dash light lights up, which would indicate to me that thats the instrument panel wire. That leaves one wire which I hooked the wire that goes to 85 on the relay. So on the switch pole:

1-85 on the relay
2-ground
3-instrument panel wire
4-power wire

I also tried different combos with no better luck.

 

[Buckshot]

There is a post on how to splice the wires to get the fog light switch to work independant from the headlights. check that for reference on the fog switch.

I did this and didn't have to mess with the back of the fog switch at all.

 

[briwayjones]

My X doesn't have fogs stock so I'm installing them from scratch basically.

 

[briwayjones]

Ok they work. Either the stock switch isn't working or something about it being a 4 pole switch is messing it up. I tried it with the 3 pole switch that came with the kit and it worked.