headlight relay harness

HansO

Not Taking Life Too Seriously
Joined
Apr 4, 2010
Messages
13,447
Location
Batemans Bay, NSW, Aus
Ride
08 Rocket III R.I.P now TEX Triumph Explorer
Please Note if you have read thru this before it has been edited
PLEASE READ ALL THE WAY THRU BEFORE STARTING and please excuse any bad grammar
you will need 2 x 30amp 5 pin relays they will usually have a basic wiring diagram on back, you will also need a 30 amp water proof or similar fuse holder a length of 3 feet 30amp twin core cable and 3 lengths of 20amp twin core cable about a foot long, if you can get mounting blocks for the relays then get them too they make the whole job a lot more tidy and easy to change a relay down the track if you have a failure.
I use shrink tubing on all joins where possible as it is a lot neater and quite tuff. The first thing to remember is to make all your connection good connections and never be scared to over insulate,
You will also need 2 crimp on type eyelet connectors for the + & - battery connections
If you use the mounting blocks they will come with the female connectors to slip in and lock onto the blocks if not using the blocks you will need 10 insulated female spade connectors.
Please note I am fussy about good connections so please take note that All wire ends are sweated with solder before being crimped
First thing to do is at one end of 30amp twin core cable cut about 8 inches of and bend in half now careful cut outer insulation and pull back 1nch either side of bend the exposed 2 inches of red and black insulated wires need to be bared but not cut, set aside take rest of 30 amp cable and bare back about 2 inches to reveal red and black cables strip ½ inch of insulation of each these exposed ends will be soldered to the exposed wire on the other 8 inch bit so you end up making a single wire into two red ends and two black ends when soldered insulate well this is the power wires from the battery so on the other end solder the fuse holder wire to the red wire and insulate well the other end of the fuse holder has a wire which will have the battery terminal crimp on eyelet as shown in picture I use a ratchet type crimper and set the connecter up in it while I am sweating the end of wire then crimp as the solder is still cooling so as to give the best possible grip on end of wire do the same with back wire this is the main power wire so needs to be done properly, the other end of cable where you have created a Y giving two red and two black will be connected to the indicated numbers on bottom of relay according to diagram here in Aus power goes to terminal 30 and negative goes to terminal 85
Next you need to make the switching wire, take one of the lengths of 20 amp cable and strip back 3 inches of the outer insulation, just for simplicity purposes we will call the red wire Low Beam and the black wire will be hi beam fix one to each of the relays terminal 86, now do the same with the other two lengths but attach them to the terminal numbers 87 there are two on each relay. So you should now have to relay with all terminals in use, Note the last two you connected will need to be tied /heat shrink tube together and the red wires go to the terminals 87 on the same relay as the red (low beam) wire is attached so that all these 20 amp red wires are going to be low beam mark that relay as you Low beam relay the other relay should have All black wires going to terminals 86 and the two 87’s
We are now ready to start attaching the harness to the bikes harness but first make sure there is NO active wires e.g. Headlight fuse removed and check that you have not got a fuse in the fuse holder you have soldered to power wire
Attach positive and negative power wires to bikes battery after having feed them from under the tank thru to under the seat note there should not be a fuse in therefore the wire is Non active.
Now we are ready to do some cutting, remove the right hand plastic steering head cover revealing the wiring coming from the Head lights there are two groups of wires one from each headlight, if you flow them back to where they enter the frame and pull the plugs out thru the frame so you can work on them outside. Both groups have the same coloured wires that being Black (earth/negative), Yellow (pilot/parking light) Blue with Red stripe (low beam)and Blue with White stripe, on the headlight sides strip back the insulating tape to give enough room to work on these wires the black and yellow wire are left untouched, on one of the plugs go to the headlight side you striped back and cut both the blue wires flush with the plug and put a dob of silicon on the back of plug to cover and insulate the flush cut wires now on the other plug cut the blue wires about 1 ½ inch from plug as you will use these as you switch power wires these are to be soldered to the red (low beam)and black(hi beam) relay wire from terminal 86. So the red wire from terminal 86 to the blue with red stripe wire and the black (hi beam) wire from the other relay’s number 86 terminal to the blue with white stripe, this has now given you a switching source to the relays the next step is the easy one.
The other two 20 amp cables you have tied or heat shrunk to together these are the wires that will feed the power from the battery thru the relays which have been switch by the smaller current drawn thru the ignition switch.
These will be soldered to the wires that are coming from the headlights using the colour coding I have established so the red (terminal 87) relay wires will be soldered to the blue with red stripe wires and same with the black(terminal 87) relay wires will be soldered to blue with white stripe.
To save getting off track to much I have not mentioned to put your heat shrink tubing on before soldering these wires so if have read this Whole thing completely before you will get it right.
Now after checking all your connections and insulations you are ready to put the fuse back in and turn on the key to find brighter lights this of course depends on how old the bike is, an older bike which might have been close to burning out the ignition switch will probably notice the biggest difference
If I have confused you please do not hesitate to ask me a question about it
Hans
Please Note if you have read thru this before it has been edited
 
Thanks Hans, I'll have a read through a thousand times until the penny finally drops..:D
I think the relay's in the UK use 30=live and 85=earth..

Thanks..
 
Thanks Hans, I'll have a read through a thousand times until the penny finally drops..:D
I think the relay's in the UK use 30=live and 85=earth..

Thanks..

Yes you are right silly me got my terminal numbers mixed up I will edit the post
 
Please note those terminal number are the same on most relays including your horn relay if you are adding a relay for say the Stebel Nautilus Air Horn
But..................
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But heres a cruncher Triumph decided to switch the horn thru negative so in that case you simply switch #86 for #85 and you have a negative switching relay, some might say this confusing why and that is a good Question the answer is Buggered if I know:confused:

Just a bit of Trivia for you my Toyota HiLux Dualcab Utility I used to own also had negative switching for its headlights:confused:
 
OK, help me then. :eek:
I want to run twin Stebel electric horns with of course a relay. I have a single fitted now just plugged in where the meep meep was. Works great. I have a second installed but not connected and a relay sitting on the shelf. Starting with the existing wiring terminals can you tell me what gets connected to what?
 
Horn Relay Wiring twin or single horn

Horn wiring Onthe Rocket is negative earth if wired up postive switch it wil come on as soon as you turn ignition key and stay on till you turn it (ignition) off
The easy way to wire up a Single (Stebel Nautilas) or dual electric horns is to takes some 20 amp twin core cable make an extention from existing horn wires and using a multi metre identifie the Positive and Negitive horn wires taking care not short out while you have ignition turned on to do so.
The postive horn wire will go to terminal 85 (normally earth) and negative goes to terminal 86 (switching), make sure it is an insulated non earthing relay you are useing Most plastic bodied one are.
run a fused 30amp single core cable from battery,the positive goes on the terminal 30
Twin Horn setup, now if you are running twin electric horns you need a "5 pin normally open 30 amp 12 volt relay" and run 20 amp dual core from each of the terminal 87 to each to the postive side of the horns if the horns are not self earthing and have negative terminal, run a wire from this terminal to earth.
Stebel Nautilus or Air pump runing single or multiple air horns you need a "4 pinnormally open 30amp" the only difference is that it has a single terminal 87 (a 5 pin can be used if a 4 pin is not available but you will need to insulate one of the terminal 87's) the wiring is the same as a 5 pin except that you only use a single 20amp cable from terminal 87 to the Horn postive

Hope this is clear if not feel free to ask ?
 
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