How to: Highbeams on while down.

Mitchd03 · How to: Highbeams on while down.

Yep, highbeams on while down, while still allowing the lights to come up when you want.

I know people wanted it, and i am yet to see someone else do it and tell the internet.

This is the result: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN4fEUVWYb8

Eitherway, you'll need either:
1) a spare black 5 pin nissan relay
2) a soldering iron
3) a small flat blade screwdriver, or other prying tool

or, you can use 2 short wires and 4 male blade terminals.

Here's how i did it...

Step 1: Locate the headlight relay.
Took me a while, its behind the big actuator for the cruise control.

Red arrow points to where bracket is, yellow dots are the bolts i talk about lower down. Note: My bracket isn't there.
Americans: Ignore the photo, and most of this step, the relay you need is on the left side of USDM models

Unbolt the cc actuator and put it somewhere else, there's 2 bolts to undo on the bracket. Remove the little plastic piece of trim covering the hole (if its still there on yours).
There should be a little metal bracket (mine was black) with 2 holes under an inch apart, one hole has a bolt in it (if you're lucky) and the other hole used to have the bolt for the cc actuator in it. Undo the remaining bolt and remove the bracket.
There should be 2 relays attached to the bracket, a black one and a brown one. Remove the plug from the black relay, and press the button on the dash to make the lights pop up. If they don't pop up, you've got the right relay.
Remove the relay from the bracket, i had to use excessive force. Don't worry if you bend the bracket, its not going back in how you took it out, Nissan doesn't want it like that.

Step 2: What you're actually doing...

The top of the relay looks like this:

What it means, is that pins 3 and 4 are connected to eachother, and 1 and 2 are connected to eachother. When electricity passes though pins 1 and 2, pins 3 and 4 are disconnected, and pins 3 and 5 are connected instead.
Now, pins 1 and 2 are connected to the highbeam wires somewhere, so when highbeam goes on, electricity passes through pins 1 and 2, and pins 3 and 5 are connected.
Pin 3 is connected to battery +, pin 5 is connected to the headlamp motor's up switch, and pin 4 is connected to the dashboard light up button.
What we want to do is force the relay to stay shut.

Step 3: Bust its ass open.
Relay looks like this from the side.

Unfortunately i forgot to get a photo of the inside of the relay, if someone in WA (sean?) wants me to do this for them, PM me, and ill take a photo of what the solder should look like.

The green line is where the relay separates from the lid. Pry the lip off and pull the top half of the relay off, you'll notice a coiled up copper wire, a copper prong. The copper prong will have an exposed copper wire hanging off the side, connected to terminal 3.
Note the position of the copper terminal, at the bottom of the prong there are two terminals (4 and 5).
Wedge something into the terminal that is not connected (i used a small piece of paper) and solder the copper prong onto the terminal it is already touching. Replace the lid of the relay, i just put the soldering iron to the lid and melted the little lip on, its a bit dodgy but it works.

Step 4: Reassemble.
Kinda like step 1, but backwards, and with less bolts. I bent my bracket too much to get the relay to go back in, so i just removed the bracket altogether.

mr camouflage

So basically your hardwiring pin 3 to pin 4 then. So that it never switches to 3-5.

Mitchd03

rat1314

I found an easier way to do it on mine. There is a large rectangle relay (thats what it looked like to me) around the same area and all I had to do was unplug it and now my lights will only go up and down when I push the button on the dash.

mr camouflage

What year ZX was yours rat1314?

Mitch, what year is your Z?

rat1314

It's an 84 model, I'd get some pic's but it's been raining here for the past few days

s2k12

Mitch has an 84 too.

Devil_z

there is an even easier way still;

you have to undo the panel directly underneath the steering wheel, and there is a black connector under there, that you just undo. simple as that!

http://z31.com/mods/cosmetic/ondown.shtml

cheers

mr camouflage

No that's the crap way of doing it. If you do it that way the headlights will never pop up.

If you do it Mitch's way you can still make the headlights pop up by pressing the button on the dash.

Like he says "while still allowing the lights to come up when you want".

Which is handy if you are driving down a dark road with no street lights, or if you get stopped by the cops and they start asking you why your headlights don't pop up any more. I guess thats not a problem if you enjoy having your car defected and like taking it to get inspected.

Devil_z

yeh mine still pop up via the button aswell, works a treat.

and if you read properly it shows
"Remove lower dash panel by removing 3 screws.
Look to right of steering column.
Look for (usually) black connector that's about one inch with two wires.
Disconnect.
Test by turning on lights.
Test to be sure headlights still pop up by pushing manual button. "

mr camouflage

Didn't get that far into it. Dunno why he write this this then:

"2nd: Disconnecting the headlights from being able to rise is illegal as you are not allowed to obstruct the headlights. It's also quite dangerous (see "1st"). "

Makes that point redundant if you can still pop the lights up.

I'd just rig a switch into the circuit to enable/disable the lights up. With the switch on headlights would work as normal, with it off they would stay down unless you pushed the dash button.

Devil_z

s2k12

rat1314

I'll start this off by saying that my car was originally a 84na manual, now with a turbo motor and after market ecu.

since my car is in pieces in a shed 15k's from hear I can't just duck out to get pic's but I will get some soon (I would say tomorrow or the next day but just in case i forget my camera). My head light work how all of us WANT them to. The lights only go up and down when I push the button on the dash, regales if I put the hi beam on or not. And they go DOWN when i push the button on the dash, and the lights can be on high or low beam.
One of the things that I done was disconnect this, (only pic i've seen on is on the net)

There is more to it but I'll post pics and do a little wright up when i can.

mr camouflage

s2k12

Hrmm.. I believe when Mitch got pulled over that night that I was riding shotgun with him on that cruise, they just checked tyres and bulbs all round the car, didn't actually look at the position of the headlights lol, although they probably just didn't notice. They also blatantly lied about the speed limit on that street though lol.

Mitchd03

rat, unplugging that makes the lights stay up when the park lights are on.

The plug on that only comes on when headlights are turned on, so all that does is stop the headlights automatically popping up when you turn the headlights on. Other than that its still factory, and the lights will stay up until you turn all lights completely off. I had done this mod, and i got annoyed when my lights popped up and stayed up after i flashed the idiot who pulled out in front of me or whatever.
Also, if you've noticed that there are indicator stalks that bolt in and look exactly the same but are from different cars (n13 pulsar, pathfinder, r31 skyline etc.) You might've noticed that they don't have the wire that leads to the plug you unplugged for doing it your way.

Whereas in my way, the relay you solder shut (or replace with wires) is triggered by the park lights, and it disables the lights going down. This relay also leads into a pop up relay, which pops the lights up when you turn the high beams on. Forcing the relay shut allows the lights to go down when the park lights are on.

I'll compare both methods using an example:
Lights down your way: You're driving at night with lights down and on, drive on a poorly lit road, cant see well, so you pop the lights up using the button on the dash. You press the button again but the lights stay up.

Lights down my way: Driving with lights down and on, poorly lit road. Press button on dash and the lights pop up. Press the button again and they go down.

Or, you flash highbeams and they go up. If your lights are off they go back down. I flash my highbeams and they stay down regardless of if the lights are on or not.

rat1314

I can't remember if I left that plug that I posted up earlier hooked up or not, I should have had a look coz I was just out working on my car. But I did get a pic of one thing that I did unhook and it made my lights work how I described earlier, they only go up and down when I push the button on the dash.
Mitchd03 you are right about that plug under the dash if you only unhook that your light will stay up after you flick your high beam and I got annoyed with it as well.
While I was trying to figure out a way of hooking up the lights to make them work how I wanted I was playing around with relays and fuses and all the rest of it and I unplugged this (the big white/clear one)

I found it behind the cruise control in the engine bay, and that is all I had to do. Like I said earlier I can't remember if I left that plug under the dash unhooked or not but it would only take you 2 seconds to undo it as well to see if it needs to be hooked up or not.