High Beam Fuse Blown
 

Here's the situation. I got a wild hair and removed my Hella lights that were on my brush bar and replaced them with a set of Piaa 525 dual beam lights that were on my Dodge. My Dodge had 4 lights on the grille guard plus the headlights plus factory fog lights.

The Piaa 525 uses an H4 bulb just like my headlights. I went with them so I have something in place of my factory fog lights that I removed with the lower air dam below the bumper for ground clearance and still have a driving light (not that my HID high beams aren't enough). I used the factory fog light wiring for the low beam side of the Piaas and that works great.

The problem comes when I tried to tie the high beam side of the Piaa into a second factory switch I added next to the original front fog light switch. I tried everything with the old aftermarket switch that I had for the Hellas and everything worked great. I have them set up so the high beam comes on with the truck's high beams. Basically I want to have the Piaas switch between high and low beam with the factory headlights.

The switch I am trying to use is the auxiliary light switch that AB sells. (http://www.roverparts.com/Parts/AMR3751.cfm) Looks just like the rear fog switch but is a little different. When I first wired the switch I think I had the wires crossed up which is probably the cause of the high beam fuse blowing. After straightening out the wiring at the switch I ran the trigger wire to the high beam on the passenger (first try was on the driver side) and blew that fuse also. I thought maybe my HIDs were causing the problem but there is no draw on the driver side headlight socket other than the small amount to activate the driving light relay. There is nothing plugged into the driver side headlight socket because of the design of my HID system.

I have said all this just to say I'm stumped where I went wrong. I have no idea why the system worked with the aftermarket switch but blows fuses with the factory switch. I tried not hooking up the dash lights to see if that could have been the problem but still blew the fuse.

I hope this makes sense and someone can steer me in the right direction. I think this will be a pretty slick set up once I get the bugs worked out.

Decided since I'm having problems I am going to start over with the wiring. Going to wire my fogs so they come on with the parking lights and go off with the high beams. The driving lights (highs beams on the Piaa lights) will operate just like a second set of headlight high beams with their own master switch. Will require 2 fuses for the fog light (low beam) side of the Piaas and a third for the driving lights (high beams). I've used this wiring set up in the past and it has always worked great. Only problem I foresee is wiring in the factory switches but even that shouldn't be a huge deal.

AK,
Call me when you get a chance.

Problem kind of solved. The factory switch I was trying to use was causing the high beam fuse to blow. As soon as I changed to an aftermarket rocker switch everything works great. Haven't gotten around to my major rewire like I want to do but after having problems with the Rover switch I may just leave everything how it is.

Not so important as you have done it different, but for future ref the D1 never had ANY AUX light switch, that switch you linked to is simply a rear FOG light switch. Its VERY bad of that site to "advertise" it as one.......

For it to blow a fuse you MUST have connected it wrong...........Most likely PIN 1 straight to GROUND PIN 5 (short)

Heres the pin outs for the factory fog switch for future ref, or if you redo what you have just done.

http://www.discovery2.co.uk/images/switchschematic.JPG

PIN 1 and 4 are the "switch action"
PIN 2 Is switch illumination
PIN 5 is the Ground
PIN 3 NOT USED.

I see my problem now. The schematic I looked at had pin 4 as ground and pin 5 as output. That makes a huge difference. No idea why I didn't think to change those wires around during troubleshooting. Thanks for the help.

The switch looks just like the rear fog switch but when you push it it stays depressed like the front fog switch, if that makes sense. My rear fog switch returns to the original position after being pressed and the light turns on to indicate the lights are on. When I first got the switch I want to use I was disappointed that they sent me a rear fog switch that they marketed as an auxiliary light switch until I realized the subtle difference. And thanks to your tip UP I found that the plug on the back of the radio select button plugged right into the aux. light switch without even having to trim it.

Guess tomorrow it's time to finally finish what seemed like a simple project when I started.

So, after taking care of my retical-cranium insertion problem aka pulled my head out of my butt, I got my wiring problem straightened out. Turns out that when I made my notes on which pin was which on the plug I got 2 of the wires backwards.

After all my work, I am now thinking of going back to my Hellas. The Piaa lights I put on are useless with the amount of light my HID headlights put out. The new plan (plan 3 I think) is to use the Hellas for driving lights and get a set of stand alone fog lights. The second part of plan 3 (or plan 4, I've lost count) is to upgrade the Hellas to HIDs.