Help wiring up fog & driving lights?

[jfalesi]

There's a reason I majored in mechanical and not electrical engineering - I hate electricity. Hated E&M labs in college physics. Can't see electrons. They don't behave intuitively. Also, things like this happen:

Tried to wire up some auxiliary lighting this weekend. As usual, took much longer than I thought, and instead of working lights, I have non-working ignition. It's not the battery, 'cuz the dome light was on before I disconnected the negative terminal. Might be a connection to the fuse panel, as I removed it from the firewall to see what was behind it. I also removed the back half that's inside the engine bay, but I didn't disconnect any wires. I pulled the flashers and the fuel gauge connection from the front of the panel, and also the fuse for the parklights, I think. Do I have to put humpty dumpty back together to get ignition back? Also, I mounted the relays as shown - one next to the washer fluid bottle and one on the radiator support. The power leads weren't long enough to mount them closer to the firewall. I connected the power leads to what looked like a positive post near the battery. It had one wire going to the + battery terminal and one going across the wiring channel on top of the radiator support. I used one of the relay screws as the ground. I know that's probably not the best place, seeing as how the relay is plastic and all, but I couldn't find my socket wrench to unscrew one of the washer bottle mounting bolts. Anyway, I screwed something up. Did I make a bonehead mistake? How do I wire the switch up to the ignition so I can turn on the auxiliary lights even if the headlights are off? Thanks in advance,

-Jamie (hates electricity)

[shadetree]

I'm con-fused. You "don't have ignition", does this mean your engine will crank over, but not fire up? Or, no crank/start? Do your accessories still work?

[jfalesi]

Doesn't crank, no accessories.

[jfalesi]

ttt - can anyone tell me how to wire up fog lights without using those blue wire splicing thingies that came with it? -Jamie

[jfalesi]

Turns out I'm an eeediot - I finally figured out that I had unplugged the fuse box-to-engine compartment wiring harness, and that I might have to plug it back in for things to, like, work and stuff. So I got the fog lights to work but blew the inline fuse while trying to find somewhere to attach the ground. Saw some nice sparking action while poking around inside the engine compartment with the ground wire while the fog lights were turned on. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea...

[Mr79C10]

This might help.

[jfalesi]

Thanks. I'm running out of terminals on my fuse block. But since my compressor is shot, I'll guess I'll use the one the AC was using

[Longhorn Man]

Don't let electricity kick your butt. You can't see water in a pipe, or exhaust in your muffler... but you know it's there.
Electronics are easy... especially at this level... this is simple stuff here.
You need 12 volts positive.
That's the + side on the bettery.

You need a conductor
That's the wire.

You (usually) need a switch
Ummm, yeah, that's the switch

You need a load
That's the light bulb, motor, blower... what ever.

You need a ground
That's dang near any piece of metal on the entire truck.

Clean/tight connections, no pinched/broken/corroded wires, a good Component... and a good ground.
It's really, almost THAT simple.

Something don't work, look for the obviouse stuff... or the most common stuff.
Taillights not working? Look at the fuse, the wires under the bumper where the traler harness has been installed over and over, check the ground. Those 3 checks fix 75% of the tail light issues.

[jfalesi]

Thanx for the pep talk Is it worth upgrading to aftermarket wiring for maxi-fuses, modern terminals and extra circuits?

[Longhorn Man]

I find 99% of the time, it's not needed to replace the harness... so if the harness is fine, and the fuse box is fine, I see no reason to swap it out. (that's my opinion on that. Glass fuses work fine, they are easy to troubleshoot, and remove/install isn't the pain that some ppl make it out to me.

[Jvan]

MR79C10, I have a question about your diagram which is clear. Why does the wire go from the switch to the fuse box ground? Can't it go to any ground point? What am I missing?

[jfalesi]

That's ignition, not ground. That's the "power tap." The ground wire for the switch is not shown.

Originally Posted by Jvan

MR79C10, I have a question about your diagram which is clear. Why does the wire go from the switch to the fuse box ground? Can't it go to any ground point? What am I missing?

[Mr79C10]

Originally Posted by jfalesi

That's ignition, not ground. That's the "power tap." The ground wire for the switch is not shown.

Thanks

[Andy4639]

A simple way to wire your lights is with the parking lamp circuit. I wired my 71 to turn them on when ever the parking lights are on with a relay for the juice. The park light activates the relay. Simple and it's all wired except the two fog lights. The only draw back is they stay on with the high beams.

[463]

http://www.6066gmcguy.org/drvlites.htm lots of good infromation from these boys