[Windshieldbandit]

Okay. First off, I'm about to rip my hair out. (I'm that guy who just fouled up the easiest mod in focus history.) I JUST installed two new headlights yesterday and both foglights. I got a little giddy and went ahead and did the Fog light mod. Now, I had forgotten the visual diagram in my head and only had a printed sheet with the text on it. Which was probably my biggest mistake. I put them in during the day and didnt really make sure they worked because i was in a hurry and it was thanksgiving. After all is said and done, and it becomes dark out, it's late, and all I want to do is just to get home and crawl into bed and snuggle into the covers and fight off the miserable frigid cold that has become new jersey. I haul all my shit to my car, start it up so it can warm up. 10 mins later I get back outside and go to drive, No headlights. No fog lights. Only the amber running lamps. So I pulled the homemade wire off and put the relay back in. No dice. Fuses? They looked okay mind you it was dark and cold and I didnt have my fuse puller so i could only pull certain ones with a pair of channel locks [smackbum] . juggled the relays around the headlights, nope. Got back on here to search for the problem, and I believe i found the cause but so far no solution. I may have put them in the wrong 2 holes.[scratch] But my problem is, even if the fog light fuse blew, that wouldnt prevent the other lights from turning on, right? I mean i JUST put a fuse back in for my fog lights yesterday because i havent had ones that have worked in 3 months, and I needed the fuse for my jetski. And the lights worked fine. Any help? anybody?

FYI this problem is just the icing on the cake for this car, there are so many things i have to fix and the list just keeps getting longer. Ill ask questions about that later, but for now I need to go to bed. Just figured id let this one problem soak overnight for you geniuses.
Thanks in advance Mr. Lucky guy who helps me fix my car!

[ffrocks]

 

[HawkeyeFLA]

You didn't say ... did the headlights work before you did the foglight mod?

 

[Windshieldbandit]

yup! both headlights and foglights did

 

[Svtzx555]

Have you tried putting the old lights back in and seeing what happens? Have you checked all the fuses now that its not dark out?

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

How relays work: Some devices pull too many amps to be switched directly through a switch like headlights, AC clutch, fuel injectors and so on. Amperage translates directly into heat, without relays your headlight switch would melt regularly.

Relays use magnetic coils to close or open circuits. In a DC application you'll have a high power IN, and high OUT or switched. Then you'll also have a coil power, or signal power in, and ground. I believe Ford switches the ground on the coil side of the relay, and the power side of the coil is connected all the time.

Pull the relay and look at the back of it and the side of it. You'll see a wiring diagram on the side. The thing that looks like a battery is the coils. Notice how some of the blades are larger than the other blades. The larger blades are for the high power, and the smaller blades are for the signal circuit. 1 & 2 are for the signal circuit. One of those should test continuity to ground (low ohms) if you have an electrical tester, and the other should show power; test with the switch ON. The high power is switched through 3 & 5, one should show 12v power, and the other should show high resistance to ground: more than one ohm.

Only you can figure out what you've done. You've either disconnected the ground to the signal circuit, the signal power, or disconnected the power to the high power circuit. Maybe this explanation will help you figure out what you did. If you don't have an electrical tester, it's going to be more difficult to diagnose, but if you look at what's there long enough a vision will come to you, burnt across the sky, and suddenly you'll know exactly what to do. If you get upset or frustrated, go have a peanut butter sandwich, and spend some time in the Zen Room.

 

[Windshieldbandit]

I cant really put the old headlights back in. They mysteriously burned out at the exact same milisecond while I was driving one night, and was left with only brights for a couple of days. (Everyone loved me on the road ^_^) But I checked when I changed them and the low beams were burned out. Good idea about the relays, by the way. From my understanding you cant really tell if they're bad or not. How much do relays cost? I never had to buy any before. I'm also going to check the fuses today too once I get paid so i can afford th 99 cent fuse puller since mine is at hme and im at work.

 

[viney266]

First thing....Get a meter and check ALL the fuses, both fuse boxes, Dash and under the hood. Its easy to do with a meter, just check continuity and place the probes on the exposed pins at the rear of the fuse. No need to pull them all out.

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

Good idea about the relays, by the way. From my understanding you cant really tell if they're bad or not.

Of course you can tell if relays are bad with an electrical tester and a 12v power source.

I think you messed up something in the wiring when you tried to do the fog light mod. Check your headlight and fog light fuses.

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

I cant really put the old headlights back in. They mysteriously burned out at the exact same milisecond while I was driving one night, and was left with only brights for a couple of days.

That does sound like the low beam relay went out, although I'd check the fuse for that circuit as well. I'd generally suspect the fuse before the relay, however that does not mean that the relays never go bad.

 

[Windshieldbandit]

would a bad low beam relay cause the high beams and fogs not to work?

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

No, but it could've caused the original problem where your low beams "burned" out.

Are you sure the elements for the low beams were burned out and not simply without power?

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

So what exactly did you modify on the car? Maybe that's how I'm confusing you. You mentioned a home-made wire. I figured the independent fog light mod included changing a wire on the relay so that the fog lights would remain on while the high beams were on.

Was there some other place where you installed a home-made wire?

If I look at your problem without thinking you tried rewiring the relay box, then I'd guess that you broke, cut, tied into, etc- the ground wire somewhere in the headlight wiring harness. That would cause everything to stop working.

On the other hand, if you removed or modified wiring, left wiring exposed, then tried turning on the lights- you likely have a blown fuse as well as a burned up wire.

All of these problems should be fairly easy to locate since you know where you were working on the wiring. I think the best thing to do is forgo the fog light mod, connect the wiring as it was before so that the lights will work as intended from the factory. Then if the lights don't work, you can diagnose the problem before trying the fog light mod.

 

[Windshieldbandit]

I didn't touch or modify and wire on the harness whatsoever. What I did do was remove the relay (R13) and jump the two places where it tells you to in focushacks. But my worry is that I put the jumpers from the wire in the wrong slots.

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

Probably so, check your fuses. You likely connected a hot wire to a ground. Use your owner's manual to locate the fuse for the headlights.

I don't know how FocusHacks did it, I'll have to look into that. I'd think you'd find a constant hot instead of the low beam hot to use for the coil on the fog light relay. To do this properly, you'd have to remove the relay box, and rewire the bottom side of the relay box. I'll go read that now and see what it says exactly.

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

OK, I just read it, I wouldn't do it like that personally. He's just bypassing the relay. I'm going to go pull that relay on my car to see what type of relay it is for curiousity's sake.

 

[Windshieldbandit]

also, when i try to switch to my high beams with the rocker switch in the car, it doesnt indicate that the brights would be on. So it's not even reading that. :\

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

Ok, my relay is different than the earlier models if the description in Focus Hacks is correct. My high beam/ fog light relay is in position R5, not R13. Because of all the possible differences, you should check your owner's manual to be sure you were working on the right relay.

This relay is what is called a double throw single pole relay. One set of contacts (3 and 4) are closed when the relay's coils are not energized. When the relay's coils are energized, 3 and 4 are opened, and 3 and 5 are closed.

The pins are numbered on the underside of the relay, but you have to look very closely.

1 and 2 are the relay's coils.
3 is the hot.
4 is the wire to the fog lights.
5 is the wire to the high beams.

If your relay is similar to this one, then I'd suggest connecting 3 to 4 under the relay box with a jumper wire. This might overload the high beam circuit. If it does, you'll want to replace the high beam fuses with the next size up- 15 to 20 for example.

 

[Windshieldbandit]

I dont even want the fog lightmod anymore, I just want my lights back. Right now I have no lightsand cant leave to drive home until its' fixed! :-(

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

Well, if you replace the relay, and find the blown fuses, you should have lights. Check your owner's manual, on my vehicle there is a single fuse for each light.

 

[Windshieldbandit]

Thanks god!

Okay, I fixed the problem. It turned out to be a bad switch fuse. When I put them in wrong, it blew the switch. I didnt even think of that. Thanks whynot for all your help [woot]