 FAQ Project. |
FIAT Spider Headlight Relay Upgrade by barker@geology.wisc.edu |
Why bother
with this upgrade?
For a variety of reasons, FIAT electrical systems may fail to deliver adequate voltage to the headlights. Significant voltage drop (the difference between power produced at the alternator and what actually reaches the electrical component in question) results in VERY dim headlights, which in and of themselves constitute a serious safety concern. The modification described in this document cures voltage drop and reroutes main power to the headlamps, resulting in excellent nighttime illumination and greatly lessened stress to your carŐs original switching system
Components, notes and miscellaneous warnings.
Buy yourself a
set of Cibie 7" European E Code headlights for right hand traffic, some
55-60 watt halogen bulbs and the
RIK-2 relay upgrade kit from Daniel Stern lighting. http://www.danielsternlighting.com/. While it's easy to find his double 87
terminal Bosch relays, I couldn't find anything else (fuseholders, terminal
blocks, light plugs, etc.) as nice as the stuff that comes in his kit.
Stern's upgrade
paper http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/relays/relays.html
describes all the terminal wires
connections. Read this paper carefully before you begin. All wire terminals on the relay and
headlight plugs are labeled, so if you pay attention it's hard to make a
mistake.
You 'll also
need a good set of wire cutter & crimping pliers, three colors of 12 Ga AWG
wiring for automotive applications, soldering iron and heatshrink tubing. A small pack of 1/4 inch ring terminals
(I used 6 in all but remember I ran a new ground from the alternator body to
the studs holding my charcoal canister down), some baby zipties and some small
wiring loom tubing and you're good to go.
You'll construct
two independent fused relay circuits, one for high and one for low beam.
You might not
need to be as anal as I was about it, but be vigilant of shielding the wires as
they pass through holes in sheetmetal.
Crimp, solder
and heatshrink all wire to connector joins.
Beware of cold
soldering!..You must get the terminal hot enough to wick solder in by capillary
action. Practice w/ some generic spade clips if you aren't an accomplished
solderer (the spade clips that come w/ stern's kit have spring tabs that hold
them in the terminal block, and he only allows you a couple extra, so don't
mess up more than twice!
Make sure you
remember to put the heatshrink on the wire before you do the
connections!
Remember to use
dielectric grease on all connections!
Step 1. Disconnect Battery!
Step 2. Remove both headlight bucket
assemblies. Use this opportunity
to take care of any rust issues and it's also a great chance to inspect the
inner fender area for trouble as well.
I don't know what color wires power your headlights, but there'll be
three of them for each headlight.
One wire provides power to the low beam, one to the high beam and one is
a ground. Cut them off , remove
the headlight bucket and locate where they emerge into the engine compartment
through a grommeted hole in the fenderwell. I was careful to preserve the original watershields running
from the headlight bucket to the fenderwell passthrough by threading the new
wires through.
You'll use the
DS power wires to trigger the relays.
The PS wires will be superfluous after this install and so be careful to
terminate these wires safely.
Step 3. Run the new wires from the light
terminal plug (it hooks on the wires via spring loaded jaws) to the terminal
block for the relays. I used blue for
the low beam circuit and red for
the high beam circuit, black for all grounds. So it goes like this:
Light
plug-wire-spade clip (at relay end).
You'll make six of these wires, hi, lo, ground for each light. The power wires run all the way to the
terminal block and the grounds mount where the original grounds did. Reassemble
the headlight buckets, and install the headlights. Don't put the trim rings on yet as you'll have to aim the
lights later.
Step 4. Run the Power supply lines from the
alternator output to each terminal block for the relays. Construct it thusly:
Ring
terminal-wire-inline fuse-wire-spade clip. The inline fuses attach to the wires
via internal screws.
Step 5. Relay grounds: make two. spade
clip-wire-ring terminal
Step 6. Use the original hi and low beam power
wires as "triggers" for each relay. Just attach a spade clip to these wires.
Step 7. Plug all the spade clips into their
respective terminal blocks and mount the blocks on the ds fenderwell.
Step 8. Plug the
relays into the terminal blocks.
Step 9. Connect
battery and turn on your new lights.
Step 10. Tidy
everything up w/ looming and zipties as appropriate.
Step 11. Aim
your lights
RIK-2 Component
identification:
-Black round
cylindrical devices: Fused fuseholders. Push inward on ends
and twist to
remove/replace fuse. To install, strip no more than 3/16" of
insulation from
end of wire, loosen setscrew in fuseholder, insert wire
and tighten
setscrew. Do this ONLY with fuse installed!
-Black cubical
devices with metal pins: Relays.
-Metal
"chain" : String of spade clip terminals for wire ends. Simply cut
each
terminal off the
chain as you need to use it. Install terminals on the
ends of all
wires that will go to the relays.
-Black
"hollow" plastic devices with mounting tabs: Relay holder/terminal
blocks. After
installing the terminals on the wire ends, push each wire
end into its
correct relay holder slot from below. It will snap lock into
place. Then the
relay can simply be plugged onto the relay holder.
-Black square
objects, about 1/4" thick and 1" on a side: H4 bulb
sockets. Squeeze
one release tab at a time, insert wire, release tab.