Wiring Headlights

Zed-the-red

Well-Known Forum User
Hi.
need a little help understanding the 240z headlight wiring.. I hope that you can help me solve the issues.

Most of the wiring on the car has been chopped about a little.. especially the front engine harness. there are no plugs at all just a jumble of wires coming through the radiator support panel.
I have managed to sort out a lot of it.. eg horns, indicators, but I am left with a few wires that am a bit puzzled by. I read somewhere that the 240Z uses the earth to switch to main beam. I am not auto electrician and all the cars I have dabbled with do not have this sort of switching.
rather than make a boob and fry something. I am presuming that you may know what is what.

I shall tell you what I have and then you may be able to tell me what goes where.

Both the headlight pods have the following wires in the sub looms coming from them.
RED = side light when tested it lights up:
Red / blue tracer Dip or main beam?
Blue / white tracer Main or dip beam?
Black which I am presuming is the earth.. this also feeds the side light with earth.
There are also the wires feeding the indicator repeaters on the wings..

Coming through the rad panel.. Ignoring the horn / indicators , ignition etc..

Red wire small gauge which has two bullet connectors, which i surmise are the feeds to the side lights.

Red wire medium gauge.. I am presuming this was for the fog lights if fitted.

Red / white tracer. heavy gauge which has a splice I presume to link both head lights together.

Red / yellow heavy gauge with no splices and judging by the length feeds the LH headlight only?

Red with black tracer medium gauge wire, this has a splice which looks like its fed to both lights..

Black wire with loads of connectors which I presume is the earth to horns etc etc..

If you can get your thinking caps on it will speed up the wiring time no end.. cheers chaps

:confused:
 

Zed-the-red

Well-Known Forum User
:unsure:R we all awake out there? or don't you know how the wiring operates on your car?
Not much of a technical forum if there is no one to answer the technical questions..:unsure:

Come on guys were are supposed to be helping each other out here... if you dont know then point me in the direction of someone who must have wired the headlights on a Z..... AS IT APPENS.. I may have solved the dillema... thanks to an American Z web site.

:p
 

Albrecht

Well-Known Forum User
"American" Zs have slightly different wiring in that area than your ( presumably ) UK market car, because of the different headlamp / sidelight / indicator / marker lamp configuration.

Have you not got the factory wiring diagram for the UK market model? It will tell you where all those coloured and traced wires are supposed to end up.
 

zpuppy

Well-Known Forum User
I'm trying to source some UK diagrams, but not having much luck with the 240,,,I have the fsm for the 240, but it's American and some of the wiring is different
 

zpuppy

Well-Known Forum User
Finally found it buried in the depths of my hard drive :eek: PM me your email and I'll send it matey. :cool:
 

morbias

Well-Known Forum User
Easiest way is to just get a multi-meter and start switching switches, that's how I wired up my headlights and repeaters. Who knows what sort of screw ups previous owners have done to the wiring
 

Rob Gaskin

Treasurer
Staff member
Site Administrator
To be honest when I see posts like that it puts me off unless I'm already working on my electrics. To answer you I'd have to get my Haynes out and do what you should be doing to sort it.

I'm not going to take all the wiring on my car to bits to find out for you. (I've taped it all up to protect it from the wet).

You already mentioned that the headlights work by switching the earth to them so that's the biggest hurdle over. And you will find spare wiring for 'running lights' too as far as I remember.

What I like to do is photocopy a wiring diagram a few times (enlarged if poss) and then trace/highlight each circuit with a coloured felt pen. That makes following the circuits easier, especially on future jobs when you have forgotten everything.

One tip - do a good job! It will save lots of time in future and breakdowns on cold, dark, wet nights! Learnt that from my rallying days - electrics are important.
 

Zed-the-red

Well-Known Forum User
To be honest when I see posts like that it puts me off unless I'm already working on my electrics. To answer you I'd have to get my Haynes out and do what you should be doing to sort it.

Rob. The whole point of a forum is to help each other out by using common knowledge. Some may know a quick answer to problems and can help save another person time.. No one asked you to unravel your loom to take a look at the wires... the question was pointed at some one who may already have a loom in bits and could take a look at the connections. or indeed some one who has done the job recently and may already have asked the question and found and answer to it.
To be bluntly honest I would bend over backwards to help another member.. even if it did mean taking the tape off the loom... thats the whole point..helping.. not slapping comments like the above on the forum... comments like that put me off coming on here in the first place as it seems as though there are certain gear sticks up certain rears.. We dont all have the same knowledge, to show intolerance of genuine questions is not the way to go.:toetap:
 
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zbloke

Club Member
Your much better off doing it yourself following a wiring diagram.........there is no guarantee that another members harness is correctly wired even if they where to look at it for you.

Have you considered fitting relays in the headlight circuit? does away with having the current flowing through the switch

Info here:-

Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply
 

MaximG

Well-Known Forum User
To impart a bit of knowledge the uk wiring diagram in the Haynes doesn't even show the heater circuit. I found that the best way to get close to the right wiring diagram is to look at how the fuse box is set up and what contacts are linked together. It turned out that the best match for my car was a US spec diagram. From there as and when I can be bothered I custom edit a scanned diagram using Microsoft Paint to get a closer match.

Spend some time trying to get to the answer yourself. I had a diagram that made sence to me at the time but when I looked it out to help you I realised it would'nt have helped at all. To be honest it didnt make sence to me either!

It might well be a technical forum but if people dont know or they have forgotten they are hardly likely to to pipe up now are they?
 
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SKiddell

Well-Known Forum User
OK as moderator the yellow card is out

Lets show a little respect to each other please, its one thing to post a request for help, its another thing all together to chastise people for not helping.

Mr B and ZTR I have edited a certain word out of your posts

If you have solved your issue then it would be appreciated if you could share any info, however you may not wish too.
 

SKiddell

Well-Known Forum User
Sorry mick, your evasive humour eludes me, please clarify
If you are referring to the sharing of info then i am confused as I have written more than my fair share of tech posts over the last few years
 
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SKiddell

Well-Known Forum User
When this tech section was started I was asked to moderate it, right from the off I made it clear that if a thread goes off topic or becomes a bun fight then it will be moderated.
 
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