Workin on my 95 LX 2.2, bought a small LED lightbar off Amazon, helps find addresses at night when delivering awesome Marcos pizza. Wanted to wire them to come on with the high beams, two wire set-up, one hot one ground, should be easy. Come to find out the high beam hot is CONSTANTLY hot, doesn't matter if I've got high or low beams on, which of course means the lightbar is on all the time. Had it wired to a switch, but it's just easier to hook em up to the highs. Pulled the dimmer relay under the hood thinking maybe there's a difference in the power delivery there, two of the plugs on the relay have power, but constantly, doesn't matter if the highs or low beams are on. Anybody have any suggestions where to look for a "only hot when the high beams are on" wire?


Oh yeah, thanks in advance for any input!

 

It works that way because the high beams are ground side switched, another words, the ground is interrupted by the high beam switch until it is engaged. Ergo, high beam circuit always has 12 volts. Most cars use ground side switched circuits. Use this diagram to help yourself out.

 

One thing I'm NO good at is reading electrical diagrams, but if I read this right the red/blue (red wire with blue chaser) running into the underhood fusebox is perhaps the one switched by the dimmer switch?

 

From your LED light bar set-up, splice the wire for the ground (-) to the Red/Blu wire at pin 17 of the blue 20P connector - C413 under the driver's dash. When the high-beams are turned on, this should also turn on the LED light bar.

 

That I can follow, but is there something missing in your description? Two different connectors, one wire, does the hot go to the C413? If so which pin? Thanks all for the assistance!

 

I just re-used a photo I marked up from another thread. The blue connector is C413. Wire is at pin 17.

 

getting closer! That wire is constant hot too, when the headlights are off, the lightbar is on but on "lowbeam", when I turn the headlights on the lightbar is on normal. Doesn't matter if the car is running or not.

 

There are two blue 20 pin connectors under the dash, one plugs in up under the dash and has about 8 wires running to it, thats the one I wired into, the other one plugs in just above the fusebox and has a ton of wires.

 

Got me a 5 pin switch to replace the chinsy one that came with the wiring harness, I don't know what all the pins are for, only have 3 of them wired at the moment (light works fine this way, still like to have it tied to high beams though), when you said to run the ground to pin 17 on the blue connector were you including running it through a 5 pin switch? I can rebuild about everything on a vehicle but when it comes to something as simple as wiring I'm blank!