I love my brand new GE Nighthawks. There is no way I could go back to regular headlights. I had a set of sealed beam Hellas.

Last night I turned on the fog lights for the first time and the high beams came on. When I looked at the front of the car, all three were on: the regular lights, high beams AND the fog lights.

Any fix for this? I would like to have the fog lights and the low beams on at the same time without the high beams.

Edit: up until I installed the LED headlights, turning on the fog lights did NOT turn on the high beams. And turning on the high beams turned OFF the fog lights. In other words, normal behavior.

Thanks,

Paul

Sounds like the PO switched wires on the headlight switch. Maybe someone has a cheat sheet showing wire color codes and their location. The factory wiring circuit helps some, but a photo would be best.

BTW, there are at least two different light switches on 914s. Specify the year and perhaps upload a pic of your light switch with connected wires.

Sherwood

Hopefully a pic soon, I have a 1974 1.8 liter. It had a single tone horn, plastic steering wheel, no center gauges. So it seemed like a car supplied without the appearance group originally. I bought it with chrome bumpers and fog lights that worked normally up until this latest upgrade. But entirely possible something weird was done if in fact the fogs were added after the fact.

Paul

I'm sure you meant more than this, but here's a picture of my switches:

In stock form, the highbeam circuit provides ground to the fog lamp relay coil only when the highbeams are off. It should be impossible for the fog lights to back feed this circuit as the power would need to jump across a terminal that never connects.

You will need to trace the wiring to figure it out.

Changed my topic heading to indicate that the fog lights used to work normally with the low beams only. The fog lights used to shut off when I turned on the high beams.

The only thing I changed was the headlights.

Thanks again,

Paul

After installing my LED headlights, which coincided with other headlight wiring issues, my high beam relay is wonky. It always starts on high beam, which really flicker, then I click it once with a pull on the signal arm to get it to switch to low beams

I need to get back under there and re-check all the wires and grounds! Good luck

change it back. see if it fixes it's self.

Porsche used relay logic to operate the fog lamps, they used the low resistance of the high beam light to ground to the fog light relay. The fog lamp switch with supply battery to the other side of the relay to turn on the fog lamps when the high beams were turn on battery would be on both sides of the fog light relay this would cause it to release. I think with your arrangement you added relays for your new lighting system and the low resistance ground is now missing causing a feed back problem.

My Golf R 2012 has LED headlights without fogs. I think the current setup even with the wonky high beams will be fine, I can live without the fogs I believe because these new LED headlights have such a great illumination right in front of the car.

I like 904svo's explanation. Must be something with the relays!

Paul

I am in no way an electrical genius BUT I've been thinking about the relay issue.

SO, I need a relay to switch between low and hi beams at the stalk.

BUT I don't need any relay to turn off the fog lights when I hit the hi beams. I'm an "on your honor kinda guy" so I'd turn the fogs off if I needed the hi beams. The automatic feature is not necessary for me.

SO, if there is a relay that automatically turns off the fog lights when I hit hi beams isn't there a way to bypass this function? Then, when I have the lo beams on and I turn on the fog lights somehow the hi beams will not be weirdly triggered on?

Where exactly is that relay and how could I "hardwire" the fog lights separate from the hi beam relay function?

Paul

There is no separate relay that cuts the fogs off. There is a relay that powers the fogs, and there is the high/low relay for the headlights. It's how they are wired together that provides the cutoff function.

Basic electrics: A relay is (more or less) an electrically-operated switch. The switch is spring-loaded so that by default, the #30 pin (usually the input for power) is connected to the #87a pin (most often not connected to anything). When power is connected to the #85 pin and the #86 pin is grounded, or vise versa, the magnet inside the relay pulls the switch so that #30 is connected to #87 (usually the output to power the light or whatever).

If #85 and #86 both have +12V, or both have ground, or either one is not connected, the spring in the relay keeps #30 connected to #87a.

Here are some pics of the guts of a relay:





OK, so if you look for the stuff around relay J5, the foglight relay, tracks ~21-23 on this diagram: http://www.pelicanparts.com/914/parts/Elec...lectric_74B.jpg

OK, here is where it gets tricky. Pin 85 of the foglight relay is connected to the high beam circuit. (You can tell it's high beams because of the wire color, and because of the high beam indicator light K1 being connected to them.) Pin 86 of the relay is connected to the fog light switch, E7, and gets +12V when the switch is pulled. In order for the relay to close, and connect 30 to 87 and send power to the foglights, pin 85 has to be grounded.

It gets grounded through the high beam circuit of the left headlight, going through fuse #1 in the process. But, if power is going to the high beams, that part of the circuit will have +12V instead of being grounded. So both 85 and 86 will see +12V, no current will flow, so the relay will not switch on.

That's how the high-beam cutout is implemented.




So, how can changing the headlight effect that? The LEDs will have a different amount of resistance, for one thing. They also will not allow current to flow "backward" through them (they are diodes after all!) but I'm not sure that will have any effect here. I'm not sure what else off the top of my head.



OK, on to the high beams versus the low beams. You'll see that the high/low relay (J in the diagram) is kind of like a standard relay that loops back on itself. But the important part is that the input (pin 56) can only be connected to one output, either F or 56a. So if you are getting power to both the high and low beam circuits, power is getting to them in some other way.

The most probable cause, if this happened after changing the headlights, is that you have crossed up the wires on one or both lights. So double- and triple-check those connections, because it is very likely that you have one or more things swapped around.

--DD

Wow, incredible answer Dave! I'm gonna try to wade through it. All I seem to remember is V=IR from high school...

BTW, all I did was unplug the headlight connector from my old headlights and then I plugged the new headlights in.
It's a 3 prong connector and there is only one way it will fit in.

What I'd really like to do is uncouple the fog lights from the headlights. Which probably means disconnecting some kind of wire somewhere. Wiring diagrams are great but where are the specific relays located in the car? (I think under the dash)

Paul

The relays in question are located on top of the fuse panel. The high/low is a square box, the foglight relay is one of the regular round ones.

--DD

There is no way the fog lamp power circuit can effect the high or low beam power circuit. They are completely separate circuits.

The only connection is the high beam providing ground to the fog light relay when off and the headlight switch providing power when on.

The load side of these circuits are isolated. There must be some wiring messed up somewhere.

Then there is always the JWest fog light upgrade. Flash your fogs with all lights off. Also turn on fogs with lows/highs off. One of my favorite upgrades. Flash on coming classics or warnings for other drivers. Near dusk I drive with markers and fogs on so pop-ups are down. Running stock fogs and H4 high/lows. This mod is plug and play. You can go back to stock if desired.

http://www.jwesteng.com/shop/index.php?id_...troller=product

I believe on a stock car you don't want the fog and the high beams on at the same time due to excessive current draw. I assume the LED headlights draw less current eliminating this as an issue. You could them wire the fog relay to the fog switch as a separate circuit. I think removing and isolating the wire from 86 on the relay and grounding the relay connection 86 will do the trick.

I don't know the history of this car but it has no appearance group options except the fog lights so I assume it was added by a p.o.

I'll try to check into the fog relay. I wouldn't run the fogs and highs at the same time, I'd be "on my honor" on that one, it seems counterproductive anyway.

Someone musta crossed something somewhere!

Thanks again, everyone. I'll report back if I iron out this bug. I think the JWest relay might iron it out also...

Paul

Hi-Lo beams, headlight cover motor, running lights and fog lamps are all inter-connected at the light switch.

Attached are two views of the light switch from my '74.
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

Source voltage to the fog lamp switch is only activated when the headlight circuits and headlight doors are energized/ON.

As an aside, to operate the fog lamps independently, disconnect the fog source wire at the headlight switch and run a new source wire directly from the fuse box to the fog lamp switch. The switch energizes fog lamps via the fog lamp relay.

Hope this helps,
Sherwood

Are you sure it doesn't already have the JWest fog light module? My car has it and I have the GE nighthawks too. Once I plugged the nighthawks in my lights started doing all sorts of crazy things. If I turn the fogs on the fogs don't come on but it switches the nighthawks to high beams. I just stopped using my fogs, and as soon as I get around to it I plan on removing the JWest module.

Interesting thought. I never tried blipping the fogs before...

But I agree, I can live without the flogs. The Nighthawks are so bright and so precision focused, I think the "dim" fogs have become superfluous! But they do look cool...

Paul

Thanks for the pics. I'm picking up ideas along the way!

Paul

Just when you thought you had found the perfect plug-n-play upgrade
....another endless 914 project develops


I have pulled the JWest fog light module and I still experience the high/low beam "issue". BUT, I love having the fog lights on as driving lights....more work to do soon!!

Aw man really? Have we confirmed the JWest flasher is the problem? Was getting close to ordering these...

So Chris, you have the LED headlights also?

Paul

Try this. On fuse#1 there is 2 white/blue wires (one goes to High beam light the other to the fog light relay) cut these two wires apart find out which one goes to
the High beam light ( apply battery) reconnect this to fuse#1 with a new spare wire.
Connect this wire to terminal #85 on a new relay. The Blue/white wire left over attach to a new relay terminal #30 . Connect terminals #86 and #87a together and run to ground. This fix will supply ground to the fog light relay on when the low beams headlight are on and remove it when the high beams are turn on.

Curious about this too. I was about to order the jwest kit as well.

Sounds doable! I think what I really want to do is have the fog lights work whenever I pull out the fog light switch. I will never run them with the brights, I just don't want to worry about the fog lights being triggered by anything other than me pulling out the dash switch!

Paul

If you want that option, take the Blue/white wire and put it to ground instead of wiring it to #30 , forget about the rest of the wiring and relay.

You don't need to do that. If you want the fogs on only with the low beams, just move the "left over" white/blue wire to one of the low beam fuses. You can use a "piggyback connector" do do that relatively painlessly.

--DD

NO I am NOT saying that. That module has been awesome for 5+ years. AND when I took it off, I realized I had it hooked up wrong in the first place, which may have been causing part of my problem...so, more work to do!

I felt removing it was a good idea since it was time to strip down to basic wiring and work back up to the functionality I had and want. I hope to re-install the JWest module, and may buy a new one.

For some reason, I had it hooked up to 12V power on the ground wire
It mostly worked! I just never had high beams

All this wiring work started because I was installing the GE LED headlights. Got them off Amazon with double coupons



Ok! Thanks for posting the potential fixes

..........how did you get "double" coupons

Order one at a time

Ah! Got it. Makes sense. I wish I had a dime for everything I've wired incorrectly! I might still have the JWest installation instructions if it would help you. Just PM me.

I made two separate orders with Amazon on the same day in the same sitting with two credit cards, just to be sneaky. Before they sent them I received an e-mail that because they were going to the same address they'd make only one shipment in one box. Got the benefit of two coupons. They don't seem to care!

I think they may be watching me type this now............LOL

Paul

Also I am happy with an "on my honor" system. I'd like the fog lights to go on and off completely separately from any other relay or failsafe mechanism. I solemnly pledge that I will never use them with my high beams.

I know there's a way to do that...

Paul

Just move that one wire to the relay off of the high-beam circuit, and hook it up to a constant +12V circuit. I did that, and have killed at least one battery that way. (Oops!) Maybe hook it up to a switched power circuit instead...

--DD

researching the truck light LEDs - did this ever get resolved?

@bdstone914 looks like this is similar to the issue we were discussing

I think it was the No high beams you were discussing. The relay requires more load to trigger to high, the additional wire in resistors fix that. Who would think not drawing current on the headlights could be a problem.

@Chi-town
@mikey914


Dylan,

Yes exact same problem we discussed.

Low beam on, turn on fogs and high beams come on.
Common in LED conversions. Many U tube videos showing how to install the resistor of circuits like turn signal. Affect many vehicles.
Mark,
Who would have thought low resistance was a problem ? About everyone on this thread including me.

Seems when changing to LEDs one should expect issues and then be pleasantly surprised if no issues arise.

For LED turnsignals likely the OEM flasher relay will need replaced. It's an absolute must with the 911 as its OEM flasher will hyperflash even if one turnsignal front or rear is replaced with LEDs.

For 911's with cruise control, if all brake lights are changed to LEDs, the CC will not engage. Turns out the CC ECU dumps about 7ma into the brake lights. With incandescent bulbs, this is not a problem. With LED brake lights, the light will glow dimly as LEDs will light up even with a tenth of a milliamp.

The 911 CC ECU monitors the voltage on the brake lights. I couldn't put enough ballast resistance on the boards to allow the CC to function properly. What solved this was the pigtail below with two 12 ohm 50W resistors in parallel. One 6 ohm 50W resistor could have been used but it would get too hot if one engaged the brakes for a long period of time. This pigtail is inserted in series with the brake light switch on the brake master cylinder.

The issue is the led is not pulling enough load. When you add a resistor it solves the problem. We have them and I tested them to confirm that it solves the problem. I have not had the chance to finalize the install instructions and Bruce has been trying to help me on this. The only questions I have are where is the best place to mount it. One thought is to mount it to the headlight housing on the opposite side of the bar as far away from the metals pop up cover. The reason being, it's a resistor and will get warm. I don't want it next to the paint. The pros of putting it hear is that it is out of sight. The con's if you drive in the rain this can become a wet area so your connections need to be properly weather proofed (good barrel connectors and heat shrink.)

The 2nd photo is only showing you what wires you need to tie in to, not where to do so. However, you can put the wires in here and plug the light in to test and make sure this resolves your issue.

Spoke, Chi-town, Mike B where would you suggest mounting this?

Does this go across the high beam or low beam LED?

I assume the resistor will have full battery voltage (14V) on it when energized.

From the picture it looks like its a 6 ohm, 50W resistor.

With a 6 ohm resistor with 14V across it, it will be burning 32W (V*V/R).

According to Vishay's TMC0506R000FE02 6 ohm, 50W resistor specs, free air mounting of the resistor allows only 40% of the power dissipation or 20W.

To burn 32W reliably the resistor should be mounted on a metal surface like an inner fender likely using the tabs to mount it with screws. A metal brace or bracket might work as well as long as there is solid contact between the brace and the bottom of the resistor. All paint should be scraped off of the brace/bracket/fender for good thermal conduction.

This derating in power dissipation in free air is why I ended up with two 12 ohm 50W resistors for the brake light ballast. I started with one 6 ohm 50W resistor but realized this would exceed the manufacturer's recommended free air power dissipation. The resistors for the brake ballast can be tie wrapped onto a brace near the brake MC.

Can you use a higher ohm resistor like 12 ohm? If so, then the power dissipation would be 16W and would be consistent with the manufacturer's guidelines for free air mounting. I think you only need to be able to trick the high/low beam switch and provide a low enough resistance to energize the fog light relay.

Interestingly these resistors are recommended as ballast resistors for turnsignals when LEDs are used. In this case, they can be used in free air since the turnsignal is on only 1/2 the time thus the overall power dissipation is 32/2 which is less than 20W (40%).

Sounds like this is the truth.....

Could you separate the ground for the fog relay from the high beam circuit?
Give it an actual ground and turn them off manually when using high beams?

Separating the ground for the fog relay would negate the need for the fog light relay to have a ballast resistor. It would make the fog light independent of the high/low beam.

Here's how the '74 914 foglights are connected. Notice the white/blue wire from the fog light relay to the top of fuses 1 and 2. Likely this wire is connected at the fuse panel and able to be easily disconnected. Then make a short pigtail with a male spade on one side and a ring terminal on the other side. Connect the male spade to the white/blue wire and the the ring terminal to a nearby chassis bolt.

Click to view attachment

The load resistor needs to be on the low beam, to trigger the relay.

Easiest way

It could be so that this wire is found on the lugs on the fuse panel for fuse 1 or 2. Easily removed and with a pigtail with male spade on one side and ring terminal on the other side, the modification "should" be an easy update. The fogs would be on then with low or high beam.

Talking to Bruce today, I realized my 930 with LED headlights has the same connections as the 914. I haven't tried the foglights with the LED headlights to see if they still work. Will have to try it this weekend.