This isn't good. So I bought a cheap wiring harness bypass for my stock headlights off eBay and I installed it (properly). I had no prior electrical issues with my XJ in the 14 months I have owned it. I put the lights on high beam while XJ was running. After 10 minutes the plastic around the fuse (part of the harness) was melting and reading over 150 degrees. I shut everything down and uninstalled the harness. Everything was put back as it was stock but now I have a problem...

My passenger side low beam doesn't work at all. Drivers side low beam is working fine. When I put them on high beam both lights work but they are really dim (far dimmer than the low beams).

First thing I did was check the fuses associated with the headlights according to the manual. They all appear fine.

There was corrosion on the terminals of the bulb that I noticed while reinstalling them. I'm going to try cleaning them up, but I don't think thats the cause. Is it possible that the harness blew my switch? Not sure if that could possibly only make one side's low beam not work. Since high beams work (barely) they must be getting some power...

 

Ground.

 

Well I'm confused how the lights would be grounded fine before and then after installing and uninstalling the harness the grounds would be bad... it was a plug-and-play harness similar to a Putco harness. I didn't alter any grounds in the XJ's original wiring.

 

I saw your post in Better headlights over stock, and I think it was the cheap relays that came with the harness. The pic you showed of the relays, do not look like the relays in the link from where you got it..

Here is the harness I have. It has been working great for almost two years now.. Notice the pic of the harness relays. Those are the relays that came with the harness.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/H4-H4-HEADLIGHT-BLACK-BOOSTER-WIRE-HARNESS-FNRG-/141029579237?hash=item20d60499e5&vxp=mtr
Here is a pic of my relays that came with the harness I have. The relays in the pic you showed in BHOS are 40a these relays are 12v 80a. Maybe the cheap relays are the issue?? with the harness you have.. I have a harness like the ones we are talking about, that the relays get real hot cause they are cheap. So it just sits on the shelf. The one i gave the link to are kicking butt.



I'm not sure if these little tabs are grounded. But there is a little wire on the inside of the relay the looks like it goes to the tab. So I'm going to assume its for grounding also the cool little green lights in the relays are on the back of the ones I have for some reason..lol

 

Yeah the link I provided was the listing I ordered from but they sent the cheap relay ones to me instead... working on maybe getting a refund now. As for my lights problem without the harness, I took everything apart and put it back together 2 or 3 times and now its working. That scares me even more. Hope something doesn't jostle loose when I hit a bump. Took it for a test drive over some RR tracks and the lights never flickered.

 

Yeah I would return them. get the one in the link I gave only 9 bucks from china, but hey sometimes you can get good electronics from them the harness in the link I gave has been working great. I ran 100/80w H4 with out any problems.

 

Parts store . BW 4136 relays.

 

^^^^^ cool Maybe you can just get the relays Cruiser gave the part # for and just change the relays for better?

 

Hmm will definitely look into this.

 

I found these relays that will plug right in to that harness 12v80a

 

Cool thanks! First I'll try just returning the harness but if that falls through I will be ordering two of these (with a new 20A fuse of course).