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Renix Wagoneer Headlight Harness Upgrade

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Old Mar 17, 2017 | 09:32 AM
  #1  
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Default Renix Wagoneer Headlight Harness Upgrade

Morning gentlemen,

I decided to throw caution to the wind and order the upgrade headlight harness that many people use on their Cherokees to see about getting brighter lights.

Here is the harness I purchased:

Cherokee Headlight Harness w/Ceramic Relays

I figured I was going to have to choose whether I wanted to have brighter low beams or high beams, but as so far as I can tell, they are wired into the same main plug and each headlight is a two-wire plug rather than a three-wire, like, based on the female pigtail on the new harness, is what the Cherokee headlights are?

So right now, I'm basically at a loss - is there a way I can jerry-rig this harness to work by utilizing my Wagoneer pigtails and foregoing the third (neutral?) wire? What about the pigtail where the harness is supposed to plug into the main OEM harness? My plug looks quite different that what I'm assuming the regular Cherokee sports?

Here are a few pictures, though I'm not sure they'll help too much
Attached Thumbnails Renix Wagoneer Headlight Harness Upgrade-img_20170312_161031.jpg   Renix Wagoneer Headlight Harness Upgrade-img_20170312_161040.jpg   Renix Wagoneer Headlight Harness Upgrade-img_20170312_161054.jpg  
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Old Mar 19, 2017 | 08:19 AM
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Worked late in the garage last night and on my first cup of coffee so I'm throwing this out there.

You need to ground each bulb with the harness. Easy.
You need a wire going to the low beam lamps. Easy
You need a wire going to the high beam lamps. Easy

The kicker is ALL the lights need to be on in Highbeam mode.

I guess this is a starting point.....
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Old Mar 19, 2017 | 08:49 PM
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Originally Posted by cruiser54
Worked late in the garage last night and on my first cup of coffee so I'm throwing this out there.

You need to ground each bulb with the harness. Easy.
You need a wire going to the low beam lamps. Easy
You need a wire going to the high beam lamps. Easy

The kicker is ALL the lights need to be on in High beam mode.

I guess this is a starting point.....
Hey Cruiser,

Unless my Waggie is different, high beam *isn't* all four. High beams are one set, low beams are another.

So regarding getting power to the lights, I'm sure I could figure that out, grounding, sure. Question though; on the harness I purchased, the plugs have three wires. One power, One ground, third...neutral? I cam move the pig tails over, but what do I do with the third wire? cap it or remove it?
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Old Mar 19, 2017 | 11:51 PM
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Note from DJ
I don’t know if this diagram will help or not but here it is:

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Old Mar 20, 2017 | 07:54 AM
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Originally Posted by MayerMR
Hey Cruiser,

Unless my Waggie is different, high beam *isn't* all four. High beams are one set, low beams are another.

So regarding getting power to the lights, I'm sure I could figure that out, grounding, sure. Question though; on the harness I purchased, the plugs have three wires. One power, One ground, third...neutral? I cam move the pig tails over, but what do I do with the third wire? cap it or remove it?
It's not that simple. The harness has to have the ground.

Ground all lamps to the harness?

Trigger low beams with low beam power from harness and high beams from the harness? But, I think both low and high will be on when high beam is selected.
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Old Mar 22, 2017 | 09:00 AM
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Originally Posted by djgrayxj
Note from DJ
I don’t know if this diagram will help or not but here it is:
Thanks DJ, I haven't had a chance to study it too closely yet - been a busy last few days...but I very much appreciate the link!

Originally Posted by cruiser54
It's not that simple. The harness has to have the ground.

Ground all lamps to the harness?

Trigger low beams with low beam power from harness and high beams from the harness? But, I think both low and high will be on when high beam is selected.
That might work. I don't see why I couldn't ground them out from the harness once I switched over the pigtails. I guess I just need to figure out how/where those relays would be placed in my *current* harness, then replicate that into the relay harness. Unfortunately for me; I'm not quite that adept at understanding the in's & out's of relays/electrical stuff as I'd like to be. I understand the concept of the relay...but not quite the logic behind where I should place one on my own.

Cruiser - Tonight I'll try to get figure out once and for all whether all four are on with highbeams and post a picture. I distinctly remember that when I replaced the headlights that two were "high beam" lights and had to be put on top/bottom and two were "ow beam" lights and, again, had a specific location top/bottom.
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