How a relay works

[Randy and Easton]

I will admit, sometime challenged by this truck and its wiring. Over the course of the last two years have gained a ton of knowledge from you fellas who share these things. I pass them on the Easton as I try and make it make sense.
This electrical system was cut and spliced all over the place, but we are getting it cleaned up and everything works so far. Latest issue with the Vintage Air backlighting was just a stray ground wire down line of the single hot line. Took a few days, and a few of you to talk me off the cliff. Worked out the dome light ground issue off the headlight switch yesterday and will start on door jam switches tomorrow. Ordered headlight relay kit from American Autowire and will put that in this weekend.

Biggest challenge was the 1100 watt amp Easton wanted in his truck. Never did 4GA wire EVER but we got that thing blasting the neighbors out and it’s all because you guys are so helpful and have giving, servants hearts. We could not be where we are without this forum. Y’all make me look a whole lot smarter to my 16 year old than I really am.. Thank You everyone!

Proverbs 27:17

Randy and Easton

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[Camar068]

one of the easiest to understand video's I could find.

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[Ricko1966]

@Grit dog you don't even need another relay just jump the socket with a piece of wire. Look at the side of the relay you probably need to jump 30 to 87

 

[Hunter79764]

Ha the cheapo relays have a clear cover of all of things. They look fine? Nothing is glowing like the f ed up headlights lol
I ran thru the wiring and there’s nowhere where the wired could touch except in 2 of the headlight plugs and those are wired clean, even if one of them was wired wrong!
I just need to put a different relay in and see.
They’re not brighter that’s for sure. Although there was no issue with the existing headlights I kinda thought they’d be little brighter getting lower straight from the battery so to speak

That makes me think there might be an issue on the plug then. IIRC, there's some difference in GM vs everybody else for a few years on how headlights were wired. One camp had the ground shared and you apply 12V to one terminal for low beam, then 12V to the other for high. The other camp was 12V shared on the common lug, and ground one or the other for low vs high. Not sure if that helps at all, and it may not apply anyway, but that's about all the "help" I can offer, just more to chew on.
I know I didn't get much more output when I did mine but it was a newer truck (an 04). Now that that truck is totalled, I plan on moving it over to either the Suburban or my Monte. Probably the Suburban, come to think of it.

 

[Catbox]

Junkyards are great places to find good relays for all kinds of uses.
The high end cars have the good OEM Bosch units.
These were all pulled from some Benz cars at the yard....

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[Hunter79764]

Early 90's GM and FWD stuff had some nice relays that work well for retrofits. They were starting to have more electric fans and accessories like that, but not the integrated fuse block/relay panels modern stuff uses. I've got quite a few relays with sockets and wire harness pigtails from Buick Regals. That era seems to be good for getting pieces to add/modernize older 70's-80's designs, since that is exactly what the factory was doing (and what a lot of us are doing now).