Miserable Hella 500 failure.... again

So I've done multiple engine overhauls, did my front suspension upgrade solo, and it was easy. Oil changes, trans. fluid changes, all this tooting of my own horn is just to say that I have a basic idea of my way around my truck. BUT I CANNOT wire up my 2 Hella 500's to save my life. I dunno if I have a bad switch (Toyota OEM) or the relay is bad. But today was my second try and it was just another failure. Any ideas?

 

...Gotta know how you're trying to wire it.

 

well its laid out exactly as the Hella wiring diagram shows, with the exception being that instead of splicing from my relay into my high beems instead I bought a mini-fuse tap and Im tapping into my auxillary fuse board through my switch.

This is how they say to run the setup....





except my green wire goes from the switch to the auxillary fuse panel....
Any ideas?

 

is it just not turning on or what?

 

Sounds dumb, but recheck your splice connectors. I seem to have a dud 10% of the time at least. Also how are your grounds? If one is bad nothing will fire.

 

yeah the switch has a light and thats not turning on and neither are the lights

I actually went out there today and cut out every single connector that was made on the harness and just stripped the wires back and spliced 'em directly together on every connection. and then at the switch I wrapped bare wire around each of the prongs to ensure secure connection. With the grounds I did the same thing, stripped em out, wrapped em around a screw then screwed it into the metal fender.

 

ehhh.... whats a VOM or DVM? I have a meter could I just use that? I had 2 seperate grounds. I dunno if the relay is working, i dunno what the click is. And yeah I'm sure the light is wired up right. I was really hopin to have this done today and then finish my CB tomorrow. Seems like it may take a bit longer...

 

Ok well i helped someone else on mod day with the wiring also for hello 500's really shitty relay setup but you work with what you got.

Ok your green wire goes to your auxilaury 12v from the fuse. Dedicated or even to your battery since well its 12v anyways and you have an inline fuse already installed. This wire goes to your #2 on the switch.

I just noticed you don't have a picture of your relay. It's very helpful.

Just remember red is positive and means live wire. You can ground your blue wire to any metal bolt that makes contact to metal, no need to scrap the paint off. So with the lights, you need to ether connect all your red wires together, and your black wired together to be ground, or you can ground each light separately. (I find it's easier to do the red wire from the lights in pairs if you have 4 lights)

#3 on your switch is a ground wire you need to ground that.

I duno what your relay is but this might help.
Yellow is 86
Black from relay is 87 to lights,
Blue is your ground 85, sorry universally black means ground but for you it's blue.
Red on the relay is 30

 

well i dont want em on with my high beams, I'd like to be able to control them seperatley. I'll see if i can figure this damn thing out. Thanks for all the input guys

 

Follow my diagram, it's probably that you hooked up the relay wrong or hooked up the wrong color wires with the switch. On is the top part and behind that is 1.

 

Check your connections and check your ground wires...
I've had a lot of problems with the grounds getting knocked loose while I was installing the rest of the wires or it wasn't a good enough ground point like I had thought...

 

if it still doesnt work try like mine and use no relay mine have the hotwire from the battery (w/ in line fuse) that goes to switch then the lights are on one wire to the switch and the ground all works great

 

I have one of those hella switches that is not installed. It is labeled with the center terminal as "load". That's where you would connect the trigger wire from the switch to the relay coil (coil is terminals 85 and 86). The diagram you posted I believe is wrong, the positive wire from the headlight circuit (or any positive 12 volts source) is supposed to go on the top. Try reversing the yellow and green wires at the switch. Also use your meter (also called a VOM or DVM) to check for positive 12 volts across the green wire from your aux fuse block (headlight circuit on the diagram) and a good ground. Relay terminals are labeled-30 is positive power from battery (red), 87 is positive power out to your lights (black), terminals 85 and 86 are the relay's coil-one of them gets grounded (blue), the other recieves 12 volts positive from your switch (yellow). It's possible the plastic socket for the relay is wired wrong. Also check your fuse at the battery (red wire) and your trigger circuit (green). You can bypass the switch (disconnect yellow and green at switch and touch them together) to see if it's bad. You can also unplug the relay and connect red (from battery) and black (power to lights). If your lights are grounded properly, they should come on. I hope this is helping you, let us know what happens.

 

I'd check things in the following order:
1. Check to make sure your lights actually work. Take the wires plugged into the battery and running to the lights and connect them together. The lights should light up. These should then be plugged into 30 and 87 in the relay (officially, 30 should go to the battery, but in this case it doesn't really matter). If not, you have either a power issue or a ground issue. Also, dont forget to check your fuse.

2. Check to make sure your relay works. Ground 85, and connect power to 86 (straight from the battery is fine). You should hear a click. If you have 30 and 87 plugged in (going to lights and battery), the lights should turn on after you connect power to the relay.

3. Check to make sure you have power going to the switch in the cab. Hook up the volt meter or test light and verify you have power coming in. If you're running it directly from the battery, make sure to fuse it (dont need much of a fuse as it shouldn't take more than 1amp to power the switch led and activate the relay). If you're running from the acc fuse, make sure your ignition is in the acc or on position before testing.

There are basically two loops with a relay. The high side and the low side. The high side actually powers the lights and the low side charges a little magnet connecting the high side together.

The way it should be wired is:
1st loop: Battery -> fuse -> Relay (30/87) -> Lights -> Ground
2nd loop: Battery (or whatever you want to activate the lights) -> fuse -> Switch -> Relay (85/86) -> Ground

Your switch will also require a ground if its lighted.