WOW bright VK headlights

I decided a while back that my VK Calais headlights were too damn dull.

Anyway, first of all I did a voltage drop test. Using my multimeter I checked the voltage drop and found it to be a little over 2 volts drop from the battery to the headlight wire connector! That is massive I thought. I got a couple of dual output relays to mount in the fuse box. One for the high and one for the low beam. I marked the relays with an 'L' and 'H'. I got some dual core double insulated 15A wire from Autobarn and wired it all up. I did another measurement and it turned out to be a 200 milli volt drop! My headlights were now as good as my friends Magna or better.

I would recommend VB-VK owners doing a voltage drop test. MY headlights are probably 50% or more brighter now.

:yeah:

Great idea.
A lot of the wiring in a car is probably inadequate.
I put those 100 W globes in a VN, they worked great , but blew a fuse and melted some of the fuseholder. So upgraded the wiring to the lights and separated the high and low beam from the fuse like you did.

Can you explain how to do the voltage drop test for those who aren't electrically
minded.
It's a very useful way to diagnose other problems too. I didn't want to hijack your thread.
Maybe we should have a "How to use a multimeter" thread also

Quite simple really.

Simply put your multimeter on the volts DC switch. Use a digital meter as analogue ones don't give a good reading for this test.
Place one of the probes to the battery negative terminal and the other probe to where the headlight socket is. Place it on the headlight socket side and not the loom socket side. The high and low beam wires are light green (high) and dark green (low) I think. With the engine off, turn on the headlights and read the meter. If your battery is fully charged at say 12.7 volts with engine off then don't be surprised to see the meter read under 11 volts when testing. If you are getting say more than a volt drop when testing, I'd do what I did.

As for the relays, get a couple of Narva relays without the resistor or diode type with 2 outputs which are marked 87/87. Connect the 12V wire (high current wire 15A wire will do) from a good 12V line or direct from the battery to both the connectors marked '30' on the relay and the 85 terminal to ground and the 86 terminal on each relay is your trigger wire and that is the wire that you cut on the output of the headlight high and low beam fuse wires. So basically, you let the existing high and low beam wires go through the fuses in the box and then to the 86 terminals on the relays. Mark the tops of the relays with L and H for high and low beam. Now the 87 terminals on each of the relays go to the headlights. Get some figure 8 wire or what you like and connect one of the wires to one relay and the other to the other relay so you have on each of the figure 8 wire a high and low beam wire. Wire the figure 8 wire to one headlight, cut, strip, solder and heatshrink and do the other headlight with another peice of figure 8 wire. Take note of which of the wires is for the high and low beam. Say use the black wire for low beam and the red wire for high beam so you wire it properly instead of doing something silly like wiring one headlight for low beam which might be high beam when turned on. Double insulated wire like I got is expensive but better I think. This stuff came with black and red wire.
Cable tie and use some loom tubing to make it all neat. Use insulated terminals on the relay or solder and heatshrink the wires directly.

The job will take no more than 1/2 an hour providing there is no interruptions and all parts are there.

So the parts you need are:

• 
  2 30A dual output relays. No resistor or diode type needed.
  Few meteres of dual core 15A cable
  Cable ties
  Loom tubing if you want
  10 insulated 6.4mm blue crimp connectors
  6mm heatshrink tubing. Dont use electrical tape unless you want to have yourself seen as a backyard dodgy car dude.
  Digital multimeter for tests

Like I said, I went from a 2 volt drop to 200mV which is huge. The headlights are way brighter and I am just using the 55/60 types. The 55/90 ones must be even better on high beam.
No more melted fuse boxes.

Wow really? I knew there'd be a noticeable improvement - but it just made this weekend's to-do list if it's even close to as good as you say it is!

Cheers dude (I wish I had've seen this thread earlier)

No probs. Providing your headlight reflectors inside are in reasonable shape, you would see a massive difference. I would say my headlights are just as good as any other car on the road.

When I got the cable from Autobarn, they wanted $3.99 a metre. I said let's do a deal and I said how much for the whole new roll which is 30 metres. He said he'd do it for $1.50 a metre which worked out to $45 instead of $119.70 at their price. I figured that I'd use the cable again sometime so I figured stuff paying 4 bucks a metre for the stuff.

Good luck. :drink:

Oh and where you connect the new cable to your headlight wires behind the headlights, cut the wires which are light green for high beam and dark green for low beam. Make sure you solder and heatshrink the connections. Avoid crimp terminals if possible. It might be difficult to tin the old headlight wiring because of it being corroded a bit. Flux can help.

And one last thing before I forget!

I have a Calais with electronic dash and if you don't allow one of the high beam wires from whatever side of the car connected to your new high beam wiring, the dash globe indicating the high beam is on won't work. I made this mistake and I could only figure out how to fix it when I read my workshop manual!

Good luck everyone. It would be good to know how yours turns out! :wave:

You can also just add the relays instead of all the wiring. Just add the relays and use 20 amp wire from the battery for terminal 30. So you will use the existing headlights wiring to trigger the relays and all the current will flow through terminals 30 from the battery.

Hey guys i got a daul 30 amp relay for $4 at a garage sale and was looking up how to wire its a new era brand and has six pins which i'm confident i know where they go to. I just want to run each to low beams as i live in the city and never use my high beams. So basically its a VH can anyone tell me which colour are the power/trigger wire on the headlight harness. I was intending on putting where the loom splits to go to each headlight therefor not having to have wire running everywhere. Sound ok ?

Damn you'd think this thread would be in the vb-vk section no wonder it took me so long to find it again