fog lights with brights mod PROBLEM, FIXED

[CountyMounty]

Well I finally decided to do the fog lights on with brights mod since the days are getting shorter and I do a lot of late driving on rural roads. I had a bad feeling about it since me and electrical stuff just dont mix but it looked so simply, yeah right. I followed the project in the project section word for word and it was easy or so it seemed. In a matter of about 15 to 20 minutes I had it all done and put back together but when I went to try it out I had no headlights at all. I had to go to work so I left it alone for the night.



Today I took everything back apart to try to figure out what was wrong. I connected a jumper to both ends of the cut wire (luckily there was still enough to tie into on both ends). I then tried connecting things up in different ways but no matter what I did I could not get my highbeam headlights to work. The following is the results of the different things I tried, I will refer to the two ends as the "fuse end" and the "wire to light end".



1) "wire to light end" grounded= low beam headlights work, no highbeams or fogs



2) "fuse end" grounded= low beams headlights work, fogs work with both low or high beam (that is high beam as selected with the inside switch as the high beam lights do not work at all)



3) neither connected to ground= low beams work, no high beams, no fogs



4) the two ends connected back together= low beams work, no high beams, fogs with either low or high as selected with switch



This has left me puzzled, mainly #4 because that is back to the way it was before I did anything, so it should have worked nomal (low and high beams, fogs with only low)



My understanding of the project is that #2 is how it is supposed to be correctly moded.



Any help would be greatly appreciated. FYI its on a 2004 XLT.

 

[Gary DiPietroSr]

Did you check all of the fuses in the headlight and fog circuits?



P.S. Too bad you never read my post on having all of that on, just by adding a headlight harness upgrade. Nothing to cut, just plug it in and you can have Hi/Low/fogs all on if you want.



Gary D.

 

[CountyMounty]

I did check the fuses but I am going to recheck as that seems like the most likely problem since the high do not even work with things back the way they were before.



Gary I probably did read your post about the headlight harness upgrade but knowing me probably figure it wouldn't be something I would wan to tackle although sounds like it would have been the better, easier option. I thought the fogs with brights project looked so simple I would do it but once again I was wrong. I really wish I had taken some of those shop classes in high school as AP English and AP math aren't doing a thing for me in my daily life.

 

[EddieS'04]

Firedog,,Did you choose the correct project for the '04 trac? There are two projects '04 and '05 is different wiring from '03 and older..

 

[CountyMounty]

I used the 04-05 project and everything made sense and the pictures were exact. I was a little unsure at first as to which end to jumper to ground, the fuse end or the wire to the light end but I figured that out. It seemed easy or so I thought. As I said above I took it all back apart and tried every combination possible with the wires and no matter what no highbeams. At this point I will have to get by with just the low beams until I get another chance to check on it probably next week. So far the only thing that seems possible is a fuse problem.

 

[EddieS'04]

I have been wanting to do this to my '04. I saved the document to my computer. Now Iam a little unsure. I hope you figure it out.

 

[Jim Luttrell]

I tried to e-mail the member that posted that project about a year ago & never got a reply so I didn't try it. Please post if you solve the issue. Sorry I'm no help.

 

[CountyMounty]

Its going to be a while before I get to try again as I have come down with some type of infection or something after a weekend of camping. Stuck on bed rest and antibiotics for a fews days so I will not be able to look at it again for a while. On Friday I again took it back apart and retried all of the different possible connections with all the same results just to make sure. So still only low beams.



Has anyone on here done the project, as posted, on an 04 and had a succesful outcome? If not we may want to try to make sure no one else tries it. It seemed like a fairly popular easy mod so Im guessing others have done it.

 

[CountyMounty]

OK Fast Eddie, jimstracn or any others who were thinking about trying this mod I finally got a chance to fix it and it was very simple, it was just a fuse as others suggested. I'm thinking the first time I tried it out I didn't have proper ground so it blew the fuse. It took just seconds to fix and now I feel stupid. I have been so busy lately and was sick for a bit and I didn't want to look at it again without some time on my hands thinking I would have to devote some time to it. So anyway today I started again by first checking the fuses and low and behold just a simple blown fuse. I apparently screwed up and checked the wrong fuses the first time. Anyway just replaced the fuse and worked just as it should, fogs on with high or low beams.

So THE MOD DOES WORK as it should.



Now I have a couple other questions, not sure if I want to mess with it anymore though and risk screwing it up again.



1st) Any easy way to set it up to have the fogs go off with low beams but stay on with high beams. The reason I did this mod was to use them on rural roads at night, I would never really need to use them as fog lights. So it would be nice if when meeting traffic I could dim the lights and have the bright fogs go out as well, without having to push the switch in (I replaced the bulbs with 9005 silverstars)



2nd) how about being able to have just the fog lights on without having to have the parking lights or headlights on. Would that just be a matter of trimming off a piece of plastic in behind the headlight switch, if so how easy is it to gain access. My reason for wanting this is that I have hideawy strobes in my headlights and parking lights and they show a little better when the other lights are off. If I could turn on just the fogs to provide a little light, say while on the scene of the accident my strobes would be even more visible.

 

[Rick Kent]

I did the mod by breaking a tab off the relay next to the air box on my 02. Are the other model years that are much more difficult or is there a better/safer way to do this mod?

 

[CountyMounty]

Just based on the projects section I would have to say there is a difference between the 02 and 04-05 ST's. Following the project for the 04-05 in the project sections is right on I just messed up somehow. Now that I have done it once I could do it again in a matter of 10 minutes and would make sure it was right on the first try. I got to use the lights last night driving back home late. They worked great. I felt so much safer driver the rural highways that are so known for moose collision.