Headlight harness upgrade?

Seems I remember someone on here advertising a headlight relay/bulb/harness upgrade, anybody know where to get one or have any recommendations or remember that seller? Looking to upgrade the headlights on my 76 D300, thanks

crackedback is doing them, gets stellar reviews.

Daniel Stern is still at it, I think?

https://www.danielsternlighting.com/

He makes great, high quality products. I have his headlight relay harness upgrades on both my Mopars and one of his convertible top relay harnesses on my '68. Highly recommended.

Really not too hard to do yourself for about $15 in relays and terminals.

Nacho has posted this on the forum multiple times. Do a search.

Joe

Found this from Nacho....

I didn't make that diagram ¿?¿?¿?¿?, but is pretty much the correct way to make it ( including the alternator source )

LOL

however is pretty much easy to make a relay upgrade by yourself. And you can even make it without cut a single wire and install the relays into the cab, being protected from heat and oil, but just if you have your ammeter wiring upgraded, since you should take the power for relays from amm stud.

On my car I used halogen sealed beams. I hate HIDs, Leds and anything like that. Sure they suck less load than Halogens, But I'm stuck with the old fashion halogen "yellowish" light ( and sealed beams )

Daniel Stern made that diagram

yes definitelly not me. I could have forwarded or included on some thread or reply ( which I don't even remember either LOL ), but I didn't make it

This is the one I made, with relays hidden down the kick panel. Didn't need to cut a wire, just remove terminals from floor dimmer switch plug and install on relays plug, and link the floor dimer switch and relays with a wire section on same color to still trigger the relay.

just needed the relays, plugs for relays, 8 packard 56/58 terminals, violet wire piece, red wire piece... 2 eyelet terminals, and red and black wires for positive and ground. Couple of fuses or even better a breaker.

It can be made also similar close to bulkhead into the cab side, just that the red and violet wires originally going to bulkhead will go to 86 terminal, and the wire piece to replace into the bulkhead will go to 87 terminal

I apologize for giving Nacho credit....I just assumed any wiring help was his...LOL
He's been a wealth of help in this subject.

Joe

you can use interlocked sockets to make the block with a mount ear to attach it somewhere and reach the relays anytime




Interesting, just found there are relays with serviceable fuses attached! This saves on installing process for the fuse.

It does take some work, but as always it’s a trade-off, your time or your wallet.
I put my relay out of sight under the battery tray.

IIRC, relay kits were around $160. Nice thing about them is the wires are all color coded and it comes with interface plugs to make them truly plug and play.

Sure you can cobble your own together if you want to go buy all the parts and wire and plugs to do so.

Jeez, that's a lot of good info, thanks guys... , I looked at all the options listed and have a message in to crackedback to see what he offers. Thanks again

I knew that wasn't Nacho's diagram because he wouldn't normally show or recommend connecting the alternator to the battery.
That diagram is based on Volvo or something with a hand operated hi/low beam. LOL.

There's at least three different ways to skin the cat. All do the same thing.
The way Crackedback makes the harness, it can be installed and removed with no cutting of original wiring.
Assuming the '76 truck has the same power feed arrangement as the earlier cars, connect to the alternator not the battery.
Looks like Nacho cut in in at or near the hi/low switch.
The way I did mine was to cut in near the original headlight sockets.

OBVIOUSLLY LOL



yes on kick panel area, but no, I din't cut any wire but untapped a bit of the harness there, removed the terminals from the dimmer switch plug and inserted to the relay socket 87 terminal. Then use a wire on same color ( violet for lows and red for highs as factory ) to link the floor dimer switch with the 86 terminal of relay at socket with new Packard terminals. Then taped everything back and it looks like nobody touched it LOL... except for ne new "pigtail" ( also taped along with teh rest of harness ) coming out from underdash harness around kick panel with the sockets and relays

Something like this I made for the low and mid AC speeds... It seems as an untouched harness... but if you pull out the harness will find the relays. Not a single wire cut. ( I made this for all AC-Heater speeds and also headlights ).



Sorry the blurry pics, they were made with an old Nokia 6125 phone maaaany years ago

I Couldn't find interlocked sockets with the mounting provision in Vzla when I made the upgrade, althought they are interlocked, Will upgrade that some day in the future with fused relays too.

Ive been running crackedback’s harnesses for years. Good quality product.

No worries Joe. Both are a wealth of info and both diagrams will work. I do like Nacho's idea on the kick panel but I already installed mine under my battery tray and wired it.

Same here BDW

Mine are under the battery tray too, but now visible with the battery in the trunk....

Joe

I'm going to have to tape all my new wiring like yours, the convoluted
wire protection I used is clumsy looking.

I think will be using a 30 amps circuit breaker to feed the hot line which sources all my relays into the cab, attached on back of housing to get the ammeter source. This will emulate the circuit protection existant on headlight switch



Just thinking out loud on my own installation sorry LOL.

This is posible just after get the bulkhead ( and alternator ) upgraded which I have.

i have one on my buddy's wife's 72 duster. i installed it because on his custom harness, an aftermarket headlight switch was used.
VERY good quality product, and TRULY plug-n-play !

Talked to him, gave him dimensions, he's getting me one constructed

Nice Nacho!

Don't worry about the old pics. Those aren't bad at all.

Thanks for the referrals and positive comments regarding my relay harness. I try to build my items with the standard of I'd be proud to use it on my own car.

Rob, your D300 harness is built. Thanks for the purchase.

Sweet thanks, looking forward to getting it installed

please if you still are using the ammeter, don't connect it to the batt, but to the alt stud, to get a correct ammeter reading and don't get stressed the ammeter unnecesarilly with a load wouldn't need to read.

Even if not using the ammeter, it is still often better to connect the relays to the alternator. Way too many people bypass the ammeter thinking all current flows through it (which of course is not correct).
Hooking to the battery on a 'typical' mopar system, with or without the ammeter, doesn't change the fact that the power to the headlight relay will still flow from the alternator through the bulkhead connection, to the mains splice back to another connection on the firewall, through a fusible link to another connection, then finally to the connection to the headlight power relay.
I put 'typical' in quotes because his '76 D300 may have a different arrangement for the power feeds. I don't think so, but I don't know for sure.

Don’t understand why it matters, you want relay power connected to battery.
Alternator supplies the battery.
The trigger for the relay is what flows through the wiring harness, and only requires mA, not amps.
That’s the whole point, remove the large current drain through the factory harness and supply it directly from battery.

Ah ha! That's what a lot of us thought. But in these systems the alternator output does not connect direct to the battery.
The 'typical' wiring arrangement on these cars and trucks was for the alternator to supply the circuit feeds at a welded junction inside the car.
The battery feed joins the alternator feed at this junction.
The battery feed/charge wire is a dead end at the battery.
^This^ arrangement is pretty elegent as it only needs one fusible link, keeps the charge line use to minimum, etc.
It has inherent weakness when equipment needs to be run off the battery, either because its run when the engine is off, or because the amp loads are very high (winch).
It also means there is no noise damping of the current by the battery. That's not a problem with basic electromechanical or even older solid state regulation and ignition but just mentioning it as another reason why its not a design approach used in more recent decades.


Basic power scheme layout illustrated below. Details will vary with year, model, etc.

The alternator powers the car once running, better to pull power at the source. Think about the readings on a voltmeter with the engine off and on. What are the readings and what causes the change.

The factory charge route is not good and it stresses the bulkhead, twice (in and out), when you pull power at the battery. The battery or starter relay are poor choices to pull any accessory power on our old mopars with the factory charge path in place.

Correct, and if you drain the new load from the batt will be constantly stressing the ammeter on charge side ( what really means is this load is sourcing the new accessory ), while being sourced from alt, this issue will be saved... as far alternator is good enough to source it of course.



Correct, the trigger is on original wiring and switches and you are saving them from loads, but the device to be sourced will be still needing the same load to work. The relay will still need to get correctly sourced just like factory did, on a new "path"

I agree with above, I did amp meter bypass and have a wire directly from alternator to battery.
Assumed most people adding relays would have done the same.

X2!

well you can guess I'm not LOL. and my relays are on the alternator line

Same.

Follow the very first diagram shown in this post, best way to reduce loads on the bulkhead connector and factory harness.
Alternator and battery are the same voltage/connection point, once you’ve run the single wire from alternator to battery, makes it easy to tap into harness for headlight relays that run along the fender to headlights.

Thought I would catch this thread up to date, got crackedback's harness installed on my 76 D300 in about an hour, no fuss no muss, lights are "whiter" and brighter and the install was clean as a whistle two (pics are in my thread in the truck forum)

i knew you would like it.
the harness i got for my buddy's duster did the same, but it took me longer to install because now i'm only "half fast" as i was many moons ago.
a great product in my humble opinion !

Rob,

Thanks for trusting me and my product with your hard earned money!

Thanks moparx too.

Happy clients are the best advertisment. I appreciate the patronage.