VB Headlight Harness

[KDMatt]

I thought in the VB catalog it said it would work for a 280?

... I know I ear-marked that page for some reason...

[mlc240z]

i can vouch for Dave's (zs-ondabrain) harness. definitely well thought-out, a pro fabrication job and a perfect fit. massive improvement to the lights. well worth the money, plus he's a hell of a nice guy to talk to and is available to answer any install questions.

he was supposed to be working on a solution for cars other than the 240z. try PM'ing him to check progress.

bart

[zcarcrazy]

I bought the VB harness - blame it on the gift certificate. I've not tried installing it, because I'm not fully understanding how you can use the switch and bypass it at the same time. The harness has two red positive wires that are to be attached to positive leads from the battery. This power goes to the relays that come with the harness. The only way that I can figure to be able to use the switch to operate the lights is to connect the original positive feed for the lights to the positive wires of the new harness. How does that take the load off of the switch? The current would still flow through the switch to get to the relays. Are you supposed to just hook the new harness to the positive wires of the original harness? WTH?!? I'm not the most experienced with electrical issues, but I catch on pretty quickly. Expecially if I have a few more details than the elementary diagram and chinese broken english written instructions printed on the package. I hate to say that this POS harness is the only think that I found from VB that I felt was worth buying. I can get any of the rest of their inventory from another supplier for less money. This harness is proving to me that it is useless. Thank goodness I didn't spend my own money on it.

If anyone has any insight as to how this is supposed to be wired in, I'm all ears (or eyes, since I would be reading about it). BTW, I have a 280, so the harness that Dave is building will apparently not work for me. It's either this, or I'll just have to wire it myself.

[sblake01]

What harness would that be? Remember, the thread you revived is over four years old. It's author, who sometimes starts threads for reasons only he would know, was talking about a harness that was for a 240Z. He, like you, owns a 280Z. Whatever harness he'd refered to may or may not the same one you're talking about. Hell, the company has even changed name since then, at least, the part of it that deals with Datsun/Nissan. You'll have to bring us up to speed as to which harness you bought. AFAIK, they (VB or Black Dragon) still don't make a 280Z headlight harness.

Edited November 3, 2009 by sblake01

[TomoHawk]

That headlight harness is for all models Z, 1970 - 1996.

[Arne]

That headlight harness is for all models Z, 1970 - 1996.

Actually, the one Black Dragon sells is totally generic. The very same part number is listed in their RX-7 catalog as fitting all RX-7s, in their Sunbeam Alpine/Tiger catalog as fitting all Alpine/Tigers,in their Chevy/GMC truck catalog as fitting all single headlight Chevy/GMC trucks, in their MGB catalog...

I'm sure you get the idea by now.

[MikeW]

How does that take the load off of the switch? The current would still flow through the switch to get to the relays.

It doesn't completely take the load off of the headlight switch, it just reduces it from 10A or so down to a fraction of an amp. Think of a relay as a heavy-duty switch that can be flipped on or off with a small electromagnet. It's that small current flow through your normal headlight switch that activates the electromagnet in the relay.

That being said there's no way that a cheap, generic headlight harness will be easy to install without butchering up your existing wiring. I once went as far as purchasing some relays and wiring before finding Dave's excellent plug and play harness for my 240Z.

[Zs-ondabrain]

I'll try and make it simple......

The VB or BD harness has an input plug (to control the relays) that plugs into the headlight bulbs 3 pin coonector, that normally plugs into the headlight itself.

Then you plug their output connector DIRECTLY into the back of your bulb. Repeat for the other side of the vehicle. Mount the relay pack and connect the power wire to the battery and the ground wire to a good ground.

BUT........ In order to do this on your S30 w/ sealed headlight buckets, you need to either cut their connectors off with enough wire to reattach the connector with butt connectors, AFTER you slide their wires thru the small hole in the back of the headlight bucket. OR cut a large hole in the back of your headlight bucket in order to slide their connector thru the hole, to connect it to the headlight bulb.

Either way, you have to basically destroy your rare parts or cut the hell out of their harness to make it all work. Having a 240Z is an advantage on your part because my harness will plug into the 240Z's headlight connectors in front of the radiator on each side of the car. No dissasembly, cutting, drilling or hurting the vehicle in ANY way.

But if you have a 280Z, or 260Z for that matter, you're S.O.L (crap out of luck) UNLESS you have access to a parts car that you can cut off the round 3-wire connectors that the 280Z uses on their headlights. I can then hardwire those to my upgrade harness and make the harness Plug-N-Play for your 280Z. Same thing for the 260Z's black round plugs..

I charge $125 for the 240Z HLH and $150 for the 260Z/280Z HLH and need the extra set of HL connectors. Nissan only used those for a few years (white round connectors) and nobody has them available anymore. The 240Z plugs are readily available and in use even now a days.

Dave

[sblake01]

That headlight harness is for all models Z, 1970 - 1996.

And also practially any other vehicle regardless of manufacturer........

[Zs-ondabrain]

And also practially any other vehicle regardless of manufacturer........

As long as the vehicle uses a 3-pin connector like our 7" bulbs, H4's, etc. Even the square bulbs of the late 70's and up use the standard 3-pin.

BUT you can only use their harness for 2 bulb systems. 510's have 4 bulb systems which make the VB / DB harness useless. Unless you don't mind 2 of your 4 bulbs being inoperative.

Edited November 4, 2009 by Zs-ondabrain

[geoyam]

I installed a Painless Performance Headlight Relay Conversion Harness (Part# 30815) (http://www.painlessperformance.com/webcatalog/largeview.php?SearchField=30815&SearchAll=Classic Cars) on my 77 280z.

I had also purchased the BD Heavy Duty Headlight Harness and wasn't very impressed with the quality and construction. The wiring was way too short to reach the opposite headlight and the harness did not have any type of fuse protection.

Zs-ondabrain is correct when he says that getting the wiring harness through the headlight bucket is a problem. I was able to overcome this by simply removing the connectors out of the plug. You can use a small flat bladed screwdrive to press the metal locking tabs and remove each connector from the plug. Be careful not to break the locking tabs or you're SOL.

I was able to fish the wires with the connectors attached through the rubber grommet and into the bucket. I simple made sure that I re-inserted the connectors into the correct position in the plug. You're good to go to plug into your headlamp. No need to butcher up the bucket or OEM headlight harness this way.

But this still presented a problem in how to mate the relay control harness to the vehicle wiring harness. I ended up cutting off the old round male connector from one of the headlight harnesses and splicing it onto the end of the relay control harness. I still butchered up the OEM harness. Oh well, at least my lights are 100% better and I'm not likely going back to the original wiring system.

Edited November 4, 2009 by geoyam

[FastWoman]

If anyone is interested, I did a rather painless headlight relay upgrade on my '78 with about $5 in parts. You can find the details on the second page of this thread:

http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35588&page=2

I posted a schematic around post 35. What I did was no more difficult than fussing with connectors in the headlight buckets. It involved going into the wiring harness, but all the connections could be made at the same point in the harness in a very accessible area.

The advantage of my approach is that it uses shorter wire paths and is simpler. The disadvantages are: (1) It requires basic competence with making electrical connections and (2) it departs from the OEM configuration of the wiring harness. However, on the second point, the relays are easy to remove later, and the headlight wires can be reconnected to restore the OEM configuration if later desired by an OEM purist. Nothing is removed from the wiring harness.

Would anyone like for me to post my method to a new thread? It was sort of glommed onto the end of my MaxiFuse thread, which started out as a thread exploring the possibility of substituting circuit breakers for my fusible links. I guess that's pretty buried. ;-)