oakrdrs187
01-02-2015, 02:29 PM
Hello and Happy New Year TGC!
Please note, this is limited to 8Ga (1999-2001)
Today I bring you a little bit of info on how to get your fog lights to come on with your parking lights, your low beams (of course) and they will remain on when using your high beams. Please note that after doing this mod (which is completely reversible BTW) you will no longer have use of your fog light button, it will serve no purpose anymore. The nice thing is you won't have to push the thing every single time you are going for a drive at night. Reason I decided to do mine is simple, my fog button gets stuck in the "In" position and to release it I have to tap next to it, I tried cleaning it but no luck.... And I don't care much to replace it on this beater anyway. So on to the reason you clicked on this Thread.
But first, a little bit of insight on how this works. Its really very simple, most lights on the car are run by a relay, the relay has 4 pins.
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy281/oakrdrs187/stuff/LightRelay_zps9eb50729.jpg
The diagram I drew up looks like the lighting relays on the 8G.
Pin A is the positive side of the fog lights, ready to receive power to turn the lights on.
Pin B is the 12V power ready to be sent, all that it needs is the relay to be activated and Pins A and B will connect internally.
Pins C and D are the trigger pins, one pin requires power and the other "Ground" to activate the relay, it doesn't matter which way the positive and negative is provided as long as it's there the relay will open.
On the car, one of the trigger pins is already powered up and the relay just needs "Ground" on the opposite pin to work. The "Ground" is provided as you turn on the lights (whether its parking, lows, highs or fogs, they all work the same) Incidentally "Ground" is removed from our fog light relay when the high beams are activated which is why they turn off. Its stupid, I know.
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy281/oakrdrs187/stuff/20150102_0006073_zpsa89e9e92.jpg
All you need is a small piece of wire like the one pictured next to the Mitsu key (size reference), preferably one that is solid and not stranded so you can shove it in the pin hole. LOL!
I have this roll of circuit board wire you can see it on the last picture sitting on the grill, got it in my tool kit from ITT Tech when I was there, so if you have 30 grand you too can go enroll and they'll give you that spool with a bunch of other things to make circuits. If you don't have the 30K but you do have a few bucks, you can go to radio shack and ask for the smallest solid wire they have, also know as hookup wire. Take your phone and show them what you need if the person helping you is a clueless high school snob.
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy281/oakrdrs187/stuff/20150102_0007013_zps76e8682d.jpg
First we need to find, and remove the fog light and parking light relays, pictured above the green arrow points to the fog light relay, the orange arrow points to the parking light relay. These relays are the same exact thing so don't worry about mixing them up.
So what we are going to do is simply use the "Ground" provided to the parking light relay to run the fog light relay also. Just insert one end of our very small wire in the parking light side "Ground" pin and the other end to the fog light pin in need of "Ground." See the red arrows below. Be sure to move the wire aside and out of the way of the relays shown by yellow arrows.
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy281/oakrdrs187/stuff/20150102_0008453_zps5c2aeb0c.jpg
This entire mod can be done by hand, virtually no tools required for this mod Although wires strippers are better than teeth and pliers help remove relays if they are a little stuck, wiggle them out slow, don't yank harder and harder or it will break. When replacing the relays back after the wires are in place you may have to give them a bit more uummphh to force the relay pin in where the wire is in now.
Once the relays are replaced they will have a very snug fit, you can go ahead and test your work.
My End result.
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy281/oakrdrs187/stuff/20150102_0009593_zps4097d902.jpg
Please be sure to test the pins with at least a test light, you can do this by grounding the tail of the test light to your negative battery post, test the smaller of the pins. You will be jumping the pins that do not have power, meaning the test light won't light up. On my pictures I have very carefully selected the pins that are correct, you may follow this but just know that TGC and I are not responsible if you make a mistake, your car goes haywire and you burn your house down.
Please note, this is limited to 8Ga (1999-2001)
Today I bring you a little bit of info on how to get your fog lights to come on with your parking lights, your low beams (of course) and they will remain on when using your high beams. Please note that after doing this mod (which is completely reversible BTW) you will no longer have use of your fog light button, it will serve no purpose anymore. The nice thing is you won't have to push the thing every single time you are going for a drive at night. Reason I decided to do mine is simple, my fog button gets stuck in the "In" position and to release it I have to tap next to it, I tried cleaning it but no luck.... And I don't care much to replace it on this beater anyway. So on to the reason you clicked on this Thread.
But first, a little bit of insight on how this works. Its really very simple, most lights on the car are run by a relay, the relay has 4 pins.
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy281/oakrdrs187/stuff/LightRelay_zps9eb50729.jpg
The diagram I drew up looks like the lighting relays on the 8G.
Pin A is the positive side of the fog lights, ready to receive power to turn the lights on.
Pin B is the 12V power ready to be sent, all that it needs is the relay to be activated and Pins A and B will connect internally.
Pins C and D are the trigger pins, one pin requires power and the other "Ground" to activate the relay, it doesn't matter which way the positive and negative is provided as long as it's there the relay will open.
On the car, one of the trigger pins is already powered up and the relay just needs "Ground" on the opposite pin to work. The "Ground" is provided as you turn on the lights (whether its parking, lows, highs or fogs, they all work the same) Incidentally "Ground" is removed from our fog light relay when the high beams are activated which is why they turn off. Its stupid, I know.
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy281/oakrdrs187/stuff/20150102_0006073_zpsa89e9e92.jpg
All you need is a small piece of wire like the one pictured next to the Mitsu key (size reference), preferably one that is solid and not stranded so you can shove it in the pin hole. LOL!
I have this roll of circuit board wire you can see it on the last picture sitting on the grill, got it in my tool kit from ITT Tech when I was there, so if you have 30 grand you too can go enroll and they'll give you that spool with a bunch of other things to make circuits. If you don't have the 30K but you do have a few bucks, you can go to radio shack and ask for the smallest solid wire they have, also know as hookup wire. Take your phone and show them what you need if the person helping you is a clueless high school snob.
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy281/oakrdrs187/stuff/20150102_0007013_zps76e8682d.jpg
First we need to find, and remove the fog light and parking light relays, pictured above the green arrow points to the fog light relay, the orange arrow points to the parking light relay. These relays are the same exact thing so don't worry about mixing them up.
So what we are going to do is simply use the "Ground" provided to the parking light relay to run the fog light relay also. Just insert one end of our very small wire in the parking light side "Ground" pin and the other end to the fog light pin in need of "Ground." See the red arrows below. Be sure to move the wire aside and out of the way of the relays shown by yellow arrows.
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy281/oakrdrs187/stuff/20150102_0008453_zps5c2aeb0c.jpg
This entire mod can be done by hand, virtually no tools required for this mod Although wires strippers are better than teeth and pliers help remove relays if they are a little stuck, wiggle them out slow, don't yank harder and harder or it will break. When replacing the relays back after the wires are in place you may have to give them a bit more uummphh to force the relay pin in where the wire is in now.
Once the relays are replaced they will have a very snug fit, you can go ahead and test your work.
My End result.
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy281/oakrdrs187/stuff/20150102_0009593_zps4097d902.jpg
Please be sure to test the pins with at least a test light, you can do this by grounding the tail of the test light to your negative battery post, test the smaller of the pins. You will be jumping the pins that do not have power, meaning the test light won't light up. On my pictures I have very carefully selected the pins that are correct, you may follow this but just know that TGC and I are not responsible if you make a mistake, your car goes haywire and you burn your house down.