Quad headlight relay harness?

[monterey1962]

Would the harness for a 1960 Ford truck work? Does anyone know if the headlight prong configuration is the same for the truck and the Panther?

http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/fb/full.aspx?Page=97

Part #36-3581-F

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Well that truck only has two headlamps, so no, obviously it won't work on your box. What you want is a relay harness for a '81-'87 Chevy or GMC with the quad headlights, them trucks use the exact same sealed beams as the box Panthers with one pair (upper row) being combined lo-hi beams and the other pair (lower row) being high beams only. So what works on those trucks should work on a box Panther as well, IIRC even the battery is on the correct side of the engine bay.

[monterey1962]

1958-1960 had four headlights. They have the part number listed for those years, but no picture.

Didn't know about the Chevy lamps, though. Thanks.

[packman]

Monterey: I got the quad headlight relay from LMC for my '82 Chevy. Discovered they fit the Crown Vic as well. It works well without issue. I will see if I can pull up the part# I got.

[packman]

LMC part# 36-3581

This fits my '86. I don't know if the plugs are any different on the '88-'91 though.

[86VickyLX]

LMC part# 36-3581

This fits my '86. I don't know if the plugs are any different on the '88-'91 though.

Bulbs are the same. The connectors are the same. If you're doing H4 conversion bulbs, the position of the terminals high and ground are in different spots.

[gadget73]

If it doesn't use normal Bosch type relays, find something that does. I bought a cheap-ass one from ebay for the Mark VII, and the shit relays it came with failed quickly. Not standard relays either, so I had to replace the sockets to use normal ones. Then it continued to eat relays and blow bulbs for mysterious reasons and I removed it after the second or third time the headlights failed completely while driving.

The one I built for the Towncar years ago continues to work absolutely flawlessly.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Monty, yeah you're right, quad round 5"-something lamps. However I have it stuck in my head for some reason that the round lamps use different pin-out than the 4x6 rectangulars in boxes. So if you plan on keeping the sealed beams, do like Packman and go for the GM harness, as it will be pretty much a plug-and-play for you.

Also heads-up, LMC harnesses used to use the stupid relay Gadget is talking about. IIRC it's actually something pretty common in some Japanese application that also happened to be pretty common in Japan, not so much on this end of the pond tho... So yeah, look for something with "ice cube" Bosch-type relays.

Or you can easily make your own by using an auxiliary relay box from an OBS F-series truck, all you gotta do is cut the red and green wires for the headlights in the factory box harness behind where you washer tank lives, and splice the truck box inline - the wires coming from the rear of the engine bay become you control signals, the wires continuing forward are your loads, then all you have to to is supply the 12V constant power and then ground the relay pull coils. Takes about an hour all in all, very easy to do and it's all Ford parts with nothing funky about them. Contrary to popular belief the box wiring is not undersized at the headlamps, it's at the very least 16awg if not even 14awg (I thintk it's 14), which is more than sufficient for the power usage of street-legal bulbs. Once you get into the stupid 110/130W bulbs yeah that needs bigger wires.

[gadget73]

Toyo maybe? Tyco? Something like that. Easy, cheesy, Japaneesy. Rated for less than the Bosch current-wise and harder to replace so its a fail in my book.

Don't cut anything. Harvest yourself some new plugs and lay a secondary harness in along side the stock one. Plug the control wires for the relays into a stock socket. It gives you a built-in backup in case of failure. I can put my Towncar back to a factory headlight circuit in about 1 minute on the side of the road with no tools, though a flashlight would be a help. I have never needed to, but the possibility is reassuring. Considering I had to do it on the Mark VII because it fucked out on me in the middle of nowhere I'm glad I built it that way.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

I carry 12-awg jumper wires exactly for that reason - relay fails I just pull it and manually juice up whatever circuit that is. Of course I have entirely too many relayed circuits many oof which are non-vital, so I can usually just pop a relay out of one of those and fix a more important circuit. Which is exactly what I did on my last long trip when the high-beams relay got sticky and would not disengage the highs when the lows came on. Falling back onto the factory harness as a backup isn't an option for me, way too much power flowing when the high beams are on, don't feel much like having an under-dash fire or at the very least a meltdown. Still, if doing a stand-alone plug-in harness is feasible, that would be the better way to go. In my case it made no sense to do it that way given the extensive wiring mods just about every circuit received (mostly so I can actually have fuses for everything like a more modern vehicle).

Tyco-brand relays are typically ice-cube stuff in both US and Euro application. Forgot what the LMC harness used, but it probably wasn't Tyco-made either way - Tyco is reputable manufacturer with decent quality control, I doubt their stuff would fail so randomly and frequently as the LMC harnesses were known to do.

[gadget73]

its more the connections that I worry about. I have a general aversion to splicing wiring. The more connections you add in the more places there are to fail, particularly if the splices aren't made properly.

I think the little relay is a Tyco-style, but cheap Chinese knockoff. Same as you can get crappy Bosch-style relays.

[monterey1962]

Thanks for the info, fellas. I'll go for the GM harness.

[packman]

The quad harness that I got from LMC for the '86 CV had decent connectors; or at least mine were decent. I've had no issues with them; only had them on the car for 2 years before the lopo quit on us though.

Now the relay harness I got from LMC (same manufacturer) for my Ranger was a different story. The headlight connectors fried up on me a few months after installing the harness. I cut off the old connectors and installed connectors I got from the local NAPA; much brighter and no burning. I should look at them next chance I get, to see if they're intact.