I have my fog lights installed except for the switch. I am wondering about where to run my switch wires through the firewall? The other option would be not to run the lights through the switch at all. I could splice into the parking lights or headlights to supply power to the relay. Looking for an easy option, thoughts everyone?

 

Use the relay. There is no decent place to mount a switch anyway unless you replace the stalk. Besides, in most states, the headlight low beams must be on with the fogs anyway.

 

I do have the relay installed and am using it. The question is where to power the relay from close it to feed the battery power to the lights. Power it from the switch and go through the trouble of running the wires through the firewall? Or power it from the parking or headlights to "make" the switch?

 

I would use a relay and tie it to the parking/headlights (low beams). That's what I did in my previous vehicle. Never had a problem, just spliced into one of the headlight feeds. I guess it depends on the current drawn by the fogs.

 

I only need enough current to close the switch in the relay. Very minimal. The power to light the lights is supplied from the lug in the center of the fuse box under the hood which appears to be fed from the battery in the trunk. The lug is hot all the time. If I tie into the parking lights or low beams, to close the relay, the fogs would only work when those lights are on which means I am depending on that system to work properly all the time. If I wire the relay as an seperate system they would work even if the main lights do not and I could use them independantly if a malfunction of my primary lights occurs. I know this is not very likely, however, you never know.

Pondering the possibilities...

 

Yeah, it depends on what route you want to take. The other thing to keep in mind is in some states it is illegal to have the high beams and fogs on at the same time -- so you would have to make sure you turn them off when using high beams (wiring to the low beams makes that automatic). That said, I don't know of anyone who has been pulled over for that.

 

Thats, true Michael, I have decided to wire them as seperate circuits. Being a former "officer of the law" I don't know of anyone ever being pulled over for that offense either. Not even by me, LOL! I never run high beams except out in the country anyway, so hopefully this will not be an issue. Gotta watch for the critters on the way home or to work.

I ran the wire from the engine compartment through the firewall tonight and soldered the connections. Hopefully I will have time this weekend to cut the dash panel, add the switch and solder the wires together leading to the switch. Then hook up the hot wire to the switch and it's finished. HURRAY!!!! I will probably look at hooking the hot wire to the wire leading to the accessory socket in the console since it is a very minimal current draw.

Thanks for the input everyone! I will try to get some pics of the install and try to post them.

 

Good luck!