Thanks carbuff. That was going to be my follow on question since most of the people who used to make them have closed up shop. Just wondering who still made a good harness still.

 

Yeah, Im happy with that one. It has real mechanical relays, an inline fuse, its plenty long, has nice h4 connectors, decent gauge wire, and its not yellow.

 

I contacted the seller and he said the wire used was an 18 gauge wire, and a 12 gauge power wire. A little smaller than what I read was needed. Guess I will keep looking around.

Anyone else know anyone still making this harness?

 

Make your own.

 

Yeah I am leaning to that, but come on I wanted to be lazy

 

I like the idea of making my own but the cost was prohibitive, so I just beefed up the Putco. All that's left from it are the relays and sockets, H4s, and most of the wiring. Replaced the stupid sheathing and built a fuse panel, greased, sealed, and grounded where appropriate.

 

Yup.

 

Ive been getting ready to do this mod but I noticed reading the posts that there is an issue with Daytime running lights. I tried googling a solution and this seems to be the clearest one, can anyone else recommend it or say it makes sense?
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f12/h...ssues-1423326/

I also saw that factory fogs may cause an issue.
https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f51/ri...lights-186016/
https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f51/ri...lights-186016/

Whats the fastest way to identify if i will have an issue with factory fogs.
The jeep has an ARB bumper, so it looks like the factory fogs were removed, however i have a factory fog light switch, that turns green when flipped on, however these is no change in the lights.
(and i guess if i dont have factory fog wiring left in the jeep ill have to make a new thread to figure out what that switch might still be wired too...)

Thanks!

 

Do you actually have DRLs? Can't see your profile or signature here on the mobile app, so no location or model year. On my Canadian-spec 1999 I cut the VSS input to the DRL module.

If you have the fog light switch but someone put an aftermarket bumper in you're going to have to go trace wiring. The factory fogs drop down in connectors under the bumper, and the fog light relay will be present in the PDC. You can also request a build sheet from Chrysler if you have a Chrysler model.

 

Courtesy of EZEARL




Suppose to be the fix:
If you have stock fog lights on a 97+ and upgrade your harness in a manner that uses the factory wiring to trigger some new relays, your fog lights will have and/or cause issues unless you make some additional modifications to address the problem. It doesn't matter if you use a plug and play harness like the eautoworks or if you split your harness open and completely strip out all the extra factory wiring like I did. The factory fog circuit will cause your new lighting system to not work properly.

If you do nothing, your headlights will work as mentioned above. Low beams will be fine, but after you turn on your high beams, they will not turn off again until you completely turn off your headlights. Big issue here is that when you switch back to low beams, both the high beam and low beam filament will be remain powered causing your bulbs to endure 115W worth of heat output instead of the 55W or 60W that they are designed for. From what I've read this can cause them to overheat and burn out within minutes.

So what is happening? If you look at the driver's side headlight plug (and you have factory fogs) you will notice there are two red wires coming out of one of the terminals. One is a small 18g Red wire which sadly is the stock high beam wire. The other is an even smaller 20g Red wire which ties into Fog Lamp Relay #1 in the PDC. Please keep in mind that Fog Lamp Relay #1 is NOT used to provide battery power to the fog lights the way we commonly use them with aftermarket lighting. It is located before the switch and simply cuts power to the Fog Light Switch unless the Headlight Switch and Beam Selector Switch are in the proper positions. It does this as law dictates that you can't run your high beams and fogs at the same time. Though not a problem here in CA, I've read that states with safety inspection programs will fail your vehicle if the lights don't operate this way.

I dug into the wiring diagrams but had to have kastein help me decipher them because there was something about this circuit that just wasn't making much sense to me. I still don't understand the function of Fog Lamp Relay #1 in its entirety, but we're only concerned with the part that is affected by the headlight harness anyways. Essentially, when your Headlight Switch is off, the relay coil receives no power and therefore won't allow your fog lights to come on. When your Headlight Switch is turned on, one side of the relay's coil receives 12V which causes the relay to activate and send power through to your Fog Light Switch. When you turn your high beams on, 12V is sent out to your headlight socket via the Beam Selector Switch, and then is sent back to the other side of the relay coil via the skinny Red wire on that shared terminal. This brings both sides of the relay coil to 12V, thus causing it to deactivate and turn off the Fog Light Switch. Weird huh? The factory designed it so that the relay is off with both sides at 0V, on with one side at 12V, and then off again with both sides at 12V. While it makes perfect sense now, this is the part that was confusing me.

So what's the problem then? Well, it turns out that even when the high beams are off, there is still approximately 5V on that skinny Red trigger wire for some reason which I still don't understand. While this is obviously not a problem in the factory configuration, it becomes a problem when you are using the high beam wire (which is directly tied into the skinny Red wire) to trigger your aftermarket high beam relay. A typical automotive relay requires approximately 8V to activate and needs to drop to somewhere below 1-5V to deactivate. When you first turn on your lights there is no problem because the phantom 5V is not enough to activate your new high beam relay. When you turn your high beams on, your new relay gets 12V and kicks on. When you go to turn off your high beams, the phantom 5V keeps the new relay from deactivating and voilà, your high beams are stuck on...

So how do we fix this? There are a few common suggestions that are out there that I just wasn't happy with, and a few that sort of work, but not as required by law:

1. Don't use your high beams, new lights are bright enough anyways (OK...)
2. If you have to use your high beams, turn your headlights off briefly to get them turn off (PITA)
3. Pull various fuses (lose your fog lights)
4. Pull the fog lamp relay (again, lose your fog lights)
5. Modify the fog lamp relay (fog lights work, but won't cut out when your high beams are on?)
6. Install a jumper in place of the fog light relay (fog lights work, but switch is always hot?)

One post I saw got it right though. lilredxj99 mentioned it in another thread which I didn't find until after the fact. The details were a little fuzzy and I still thought the issue deserved some further explanation so that's why I just wrote this damn novel...

Oh yeah, so the right way to do it... Cut the 20g Red Fog Lamp Relay #1 ground/trigger wire at the back of the driver's side headlight plug. Extend this wire using your preferred method so that it is long enough to reach your new aftermarket high beam relay. Splice it into the 87 pin (output) of your new high beam relay. If you have two 87's (which is ideal), either one is OK. Do not however use 87a if your relay has it!

Yep, that's it... Your high beams will now turn off when they're supposed to, your fog lights will turn on/off when they're supposed to, and your low beams will continue to work as they're supposed to. Sure you could have skipped all the way down to the bottom and found your answer, but you wanted to know how/why it works, right?

 

Hey salad,
Yes I have DRL. It's a 2000 Jeep Cherokee Classic, Automatic, 4dr, 4x4 4.0 L V6. First sold in Southern Ontario and it has slowly made its way Northward to me. To have this upgrade work I would have to do what you did? I'll order the parts before I bug you for pictures more detailed instructions.

Hey cruiser,
Thanks for the info, I saw the write up before, I will have to print it out and trace the wires from the factory fog light switch to see wether any of the fog light harness / wiring is left at all or if the switch was repurposed for auxiliary lights.

 

You sure about that V6?

 

V6 eh. Lol

The DRL module sits on the right fender near the blower motor. Immediately underneath the hinge for the hood prop. Apparently I forgot to take pictures of what I did but I posted some crap here https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/drl-trigger-172440/

I pulled back the wrapping and cut the white/orange VSS wire. That stops the DRL module from turning them on in the first place but retains all other functionality. It's important to actually kill the DRLs because the low voltage output is too low for the relays in the Putco harness, it makes them buzz and flicker. If one was so inclined a better relay with wider range on the control side could be sourced and used instead.

 

Sorry I6

 

THANK YOU, this is exactly what I've been looking for! Those newegg bulbs, says "sold in pairs" so does that mean you would need to order 2 to get a full set of lights? or is it referring to "pair" as all 4 lights?