1st Gen/'97 Hi/Lo Xenon Conversion Not Working - I promise I searched

Hello people smarter than I,

I promise I have Googled to no avail. I was given this cheap-o HID hi/lo (dual bulb) digital xenon kit.

I have purchased the 7x6 headlight housings, housing buckets, and grill to convert my '97 2WD to the 95-96 4x4 front end. The kit looks like it's "plug-n-play":

In this picture you can see the "warning flicker" cancel relay connected between the ballast power plugs, the H4 3-pin connector, the HID sealed controller circuit board, and the bulb.


Here you can see the "dual bulb" configuration. These bulbs appear to share a single ground and separate power/V+ wires:


H4 connector pictured here. This is the stock connector configuration on my Taco, but when plugged into the stock headlight power, this setup does not work. I verified that the lights work by providing 12V+ to them:


Here are the individual pieces and parts for clarity:


I have tested this setup in a number of ways, including with and without the warning flicker cancellation relay. Nothing works 100% so far. By swapping the position of the 12v+ wires in the kit's H4 connector, I was able to make the low beams work when the high beams were activated, but I have not been able to successfully activate the high beams and low beams independently.

This kit does not have the relays or 12v+/ GND connectors for the battery and chassis ground, like I see in many other kits.

I am stubborn and 100% certain that this kit can be made to work with a stock Tacoma H4 connector, but I'm missing something.

Has anyone successfully stuck one of these kits in their Taco? I promise to never use the high beams (they appear to be 6000k). Any help you folks can throw my way comes highly appreciated.

 

That kit in a stock 7x6 housing? I'm glad they don't work.

 

Cool. Thanks for being helpful. I appreciate that.

For clarity, my stock housings are the '97 2WD setup. I already have a new 95-97 4x4/4WD grill to replace my stock '97 2WD setup. I also have already purchased 7x6 housings and I'm trying to locate 7x6 housing buckets to replace my non-7x6 buckets on my '97 front end.

I can easily just run stock bulbs in the 7x6 housings once I complete the headlight assembly swap. I just didn't want these to go to waste because I have them.

I appreciate your candor and willingness to help. I'm sure others admire that quality in you, too.

 

Except I do not plan on running these in the stock housings. I have 7x6 projector housings to replace my stock housings. I'm not asking a housing question. I'm asking a wiring question. Sorry if that isn't clear.

 

Did you first try testing this straight from the battery?

 

The H4 plug on the harness is as follows

 

Thank you. I plan on taking another stab at it this evening. As of last night, the HID kit would night light no matter the configuration I used on the wiring, including swapping the tabs.

I believe this kit will require some modification to get it to work. Inside the sealed block plastic box (not the ballast) there's a "controller" board, and possibly a relay, but I'm unsure. Either way, with everything wired up, high beams wouldn't work and low beams would only work with the high beams activated. My high beams notification light in the cluster also would not light.

Passing 12v+ to the ballast would power the high-beams, but that would leave them in the "ON" state all the time.

 

Don't know if anybody else has a problem with flicker but I didn't have an issue on my 96 so I would ditch that part if it causes issues with the harness working. It would be a good idea to get a TheRetrofitSource H4 relay harness as well. You want a good steady voltage and a good ground for any HID kit you run.

 

I did give it a shot without the warning flicker unit, but to no avail. Thanks for your help.

On your setup, did your ballast have a ground/V+ wire as well as cables to the bulb/stock H4 wiring?

Thanks

 

Yes. +/- wires from ballast. On your wiring it looks like you have both grounds running to one plug on the H4. Are trucks are ground switched so that's why you can't get them both to run. I would pull the wires and only run the HID bulb through the H4 plug first.

 

Alright, cool. I'm going to give it another try this evening and see what I can drum up.

 

Awesome. I figured there had to be some finaggling the order/configuration of the pins on these cheapie kits. I will document my results and repost them in this thread if I manage to get them to work.

 

Actually that's wrong. Let me look at the diagram I had and check again.

 

Alright, thanks for all of your help on this; I'm itching to get home and try to get the lights working.

 

The red circles should match up for the HID bulb. The plugs in the black circle should plug together w/ or w/out the flicker thing. Test light the H4 plug to make sure the Hot wire is going to the common on the H4 plug. The Ground then can go to the Low prong on the H4 plug. Then the High Beam bulb black wire can go to the H4 High prong and the Red to the Ground Prong on the H4 plug.

 

Awesome. I owe you one of several beers. I'll post back with an update on my progress.

 

Just FYI my 96 has 1 common and two grounds for High and Low beam function. Yours could be different so that's why I recommend using a test light on your factory harness plug and mark on the plug where the ground and common are.