I would agree if you were talking about putting them on a brand new XJ. But these are not brand new trucks. The wiring in these trucks has been building resistance for years. Before my harness, my lights were so dim that I couldn't even tell they were on from the driver's seat when driving around in the city. Any ambient light would drown them out.

So if the existing harness is that far gone, how can you be sure that the voltage won't fall below the driver's threshold? Even if it's drawing less than a low beam halogen, that may still be more than a damaged switch can handle. Maybe you just delay the inevitable.

Furthermore, LEDs often do weird things on systems that weren't originally designed for them. Somebody here recently installed LEDs all around and had all his lights start flashing like a Christmas tree. There are numerous reports on the web of people installing LED headlights and having them flicker or cut off, high beams don't work, etc. Seems like an aged, out-of-spec wiring harness would increase the likelihood of issues occurring.

 

Because for the halogen light, the power is proportional to the voltage squared (fixed resistance). Hence, a drop from say 13V at the battery to 11V at the light, you'd see a decrease of almost 30% in power. That doesn't mean the wire doesn't have the capacity to deliver enough power.

LEDs do weird things in newer vehicles for a variety of reasons. Usually, because they don't present a large enough load (wire in resistor) and/or because of how the vehicle itself regulates the voltage (need a cleaner power source for the driver, a relay is added like in the kit you propose). There is no such worry with an XJ.

 

Puto harness just ordered from Amazon, thanks for the suggestions guys.

Take Care

 

Agreed ^^^

I have Trucklites LED's on my XJ currently so I can speak from true experience. I've built & ran 100+ HID projector headlights. Nothing currently available stacks up.

 

I have retrofits on my TJ but the ones off the shelf for the XJ just look stupid or a lot of modding to the bucket to making something. Sigh. Running the Rigid DOT cubes instead of upgrading the headlights, suits me fine.

 

You can't disagree with facts. That's not how it works. A properly aimed and adjusted LED headlight will not cause dangerous conditions. It far exceeds ALL DOT regulations for lighting.

Any improperly adjusted headlights falls on the ****ty owners.

 

The key word is "DOT Approved". I've seen many LED headlights popping up that are no different then turning on your brights. That's why off-road LED bars are illegal to run on public streets. There's no light control, just all the light everywhere (including into on coming traffic's eyes).

The JW Speakers use a projector lens in front of the LED's to control the beam pattern & create a cutoff like an HID projectors uses. Trucklites uses a reflector designed for the LED's specifically to also keep light from going above the cutoff (but not as smooth & clean as a projector).

 

Question. Been readin up on this, is there more than one putco wiring harness? I looked on Amazon, found some and now not sure what to get. Found a heavy duty one...

 

Yes, and more than just one model may work. I used the following one and it went in easily.

 

I'm seeing a few people here who need to read this: https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f67/headlights-203245/

A relay harness should still be used with LED headlights. It may not do anything for light brightness, but it will still protect your headlight switch from damage and reduce the odds of an electrical fire.

Truck-lites are very good headlights and are totally safe when aimed. This is not an opinion to be disagreed with; this is fact. JW Speaker's LED headlights are just about the single best headlights money can buy right now (and oh boy do they require a lot of money to buy them).

 

Switching to LED Highlights on their own will protect your headlight switch from damage and reduce the odds of an electrical fire... without adding a relay.

The sky is not falling. That's all I'm trying to get at. If your terminals are all corroded, clean them and put in a relay, if not, I don't see the need to rush out and do it -- you didn't add a relay to every 18+ga circuit in your truck, you know, all the ones fused higher than the ten amps for the headlights, did you? All those are electrical fires just waiting to happen!!!!!

 

The $40 harness is cheap insurance to protect those $400 headlights. Why are you balking at paying chump change for a proper wiring system for such expensive lights? If one is so cheap, why are they buying $400 headlights?

The headlight switch in the cab IS the fire hazard, and the relay system substantially reduces that risk.

Newer vehicles do use a whole lot more relays.

 

I will say from very recent personal experience with my '88 XJ that the factory headlight switch, and its associated wiring, is a terrible design. Absolutely stupid design.

The whole switch, a switch that gets man-handled thousands of times in it's lifespan, is fixed in place by a single plastic wall about 1/8" thick. Add to that stupidity, the switch frame is metal and because of the higher current going through it to the headlights would heat that thing up and lead to making that plastic brittle.

In my case, I just moved all the circuits from the switch to a set of switches, and I sure didn't want to run that much current through one of those switches so the relay system was the best thing to do.

You want to use the relay harness because the Jeep factory headlight switch design is stupid. There are dozens of threads at this forum from folks who have had problems with their factory headlight switch...because the design is stupid.

I rant because my problems with that stupid g-d factory switch gave me so many problems, cost me so much money, and caught my fuggin XJ on fire and lost me a good job.

Go on and tell us why we should keep using that factory-stupid design.....

 

Putting in a harness where basically everyone has said the relays are **** is just cheap with not a lot of insurance.

The drivers in the headlights have overvoltage protection and low voltage shutoff, you're not protecting anything there.

The parking lights off the switch are pulling as much current as the LED heads. So if the problem you're concerned with fixing is the amperage through the switch, and you're OK with the parking lights as they are, then you've already solved that to a sufficient degree with just the LED headlights, have you not?

 

If you want to fix it, do the whole thing as you did. Just throwing a relay on for LED headlights that now use less than half the power as halogens (which is apparently OK for parking lights, but not the ??headlights??) hasn't solved anything IMO.