Upgrade your headlight relay to electronic, How to wire up the new relay Options

[Mike Bellis]

The factory highbeam relay is a mechanical toggle relay. As they get old, they stop working correctly. It takes multiple pulls on the colum switch to engage the highbeams. Some may stop working completely.

Below you will see how to wire up an electronic relay. It's very easy to do. The very smart European builders have standardized their relay terminals. So many manufaturers relays will work. The picture below is a Saab relay. This relay can be found for $5-10 at junk yards. The 914 relay is about $50





You will need to jumper terminals 30 and 86 together with the 914 wire from terminal 30

Terminal 56a will go to the 914 Yellow headlamp wire

Terminal 56b will go to the 914 White headlamp wire

Terminal S will go to the 914 wire from Terminal S

The final wire will be a new Ground wire you will add to terminal 31

That's it! You will now have an electronic highbeam relay. Now you have to figure out how to mount it.

[siverson]

So this Saab relay is just used to replace the switch between high and low beam. That is, it doesn't provide a new power source to pull from for high wattage bulbs. Is that right?

So I could use this Saab relay to have an electronic toggle, but it's still a good idea to have a relay and new, larger diameter wire that is separately fused on the outbound side of things if high wattage bulbs are used.

(I'm cleaning up my headlight wiring as I put my car back together...)

-Steve

[Mike Bellis]

So this Saab relay is just used to replace the switch between high and low beam. That is, it doesn't provide a new power source to pull from for high wattage bulbs. Is that right?

So I could use this Saab relay to have an electronic toggle, but it's still a good idea to have a relay and new, larger diameter wire that is separately fused on the outbound side of things if high wattage bulbs are used.

(I'm cleaning up my headlight wiring as I put my car back together...)

-Steve

I'm not sure what the wattage of the Saab relay is. You are more limited by the wire size than the relay size. The factory wiring is just barely adequate for the stock lights. This is the case for every car, not just the 914. the factory's make the wire harness as cheap as possible.

So It may be a good idea for additional relays and thicker wire. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)