How to fit LED DRLs. by SombreroPeak (Dom) This 'How To' has been written by me following my purchase of Hamish's LED DRLs which replace the stock front fog lights. I have assumed that you will already know how to remove the frunk plastics. I have to thank many members who have helped me with direct advice, or indirectly by their own posts. What a great club this is!
Disclaimer: This is a record of my method and neither I nor the club take any responsibility for the work you choose to undertake.- When you get the DRLs, open up the entire package and take a look at what you have. It's an excellent comprehensive kit, so you'll need nothing from your old fogs
- Open the bonnet.
- Remove the 'frunk' plastics.
- Remove the front bumper by locating the bolts just forward of the top of the radiator. Remove the bolts on the underside of the bumper. There are a few here, including one on the extreme end either side which fix it to the plastic undertrays. There is also a large phillips screw bolt on the inside of each wheel well that fixes the top corner to the front wings. You may be able to access this by pulling the wheel liner away, or you may have to unpop the wheel liner.
- I now cleaned up the front crash bar before laying out the wiring harness with the Yellow and Red wires over on the passenger's side.
- Pic 1 - Using some thin black zip ties, slowly begin to assemble the wiring harness against the back of the crash bar.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180420/f5ffdbf21c222c00284ff904767125a7.jpg) - Pic 2 - Only pull the ties tight when you are happy that you have the harness in the right place with enough wiring on the driver's side.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180420/c6c34c8dad923ad4cda7eef9131ac3e5.jpg) - Pic 2.1 - The kit comes with the terminal plug separate from the main harness. Push the wires into the plug them ensuring that the RED wire will correspond with the RED wire on the original fog lights plug when they are together.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180420/624829e25197fc63650a672dbce446e3.jpg)
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- Pic 3 & 4 - I bought some extra strength Velcro sticky pads from Halford. The pack I bought came with two lengths, a fraction longer than the two boxes, so I trimmed about 15mm off the ends.
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- Pic 5 & 6 - For the passenger side I fixed the box on the vertical panel as shown.
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- Pic 7 & 8 - For the driver's side the wiper bottle is in the way, so I fixed it beneath the crash bar.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180420/5ef8810e25fe573e933daeec004b6f78.jpg)
- Pic 9 - The harness is quite long, so I threaded it back and forth in the last two zip ties on the passenger side, and then fed the harness up behind the battery as shown.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180420/8abe018cc1cebf05a06b8d2b0a04226f.jpg) - Pic 10 - The RED wire from the harness should run up to the wiper motor. It has a built-in fuse, but it's a long wire, so I trimmed it and used one of the four Scotch blocks to reconnect. Looking at the terminal coming from the wiper motor, you want to tap into the blue and white wire that is the middle upper wire. Again I used one of the Scotch blocks to do this.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180420/e679cda1820070b65309cf03336dd049.jpg) - Pic 11 - The YELLOW wire needs to tap into the dipped beam light of your passenger headlight. That is the RED wire going to the bulb in the picture below. Once again, easy with a Scotch block.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180420/fbeba3bddf9452c9a970d0ac14ab8cb5.jpg)
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180420/cbd6d8861afc193adc81f2ecafa0c7f9.jpg) - Pic 12 = I then plugged the new lights into the harness to make sure it was all good before putting everything back together. I didn't want to find I had a problem and have to take it all apart again!
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180420/de47a0ea4ab1ab9505eb7223897b5474.jpg)
- When you remove your old fogs you'll realise how simply they fit, and the new kit comes with like-for-like fixings.
Conclusion, I love these, they are really simple to install, the toughest part is putting the bumper back on! I love the kit, it is fully comprehensive, and I like the daylight running aspects of them too. I realise that the Scotch blocks are not to everyone's liking, and given better weather, and if I hadn't been in a rush for the MOT man, I would have properly spliced and soldered the wires. This is a job for the summer.
There's a slight mistake in this howto.
The directions tell you to tap the yellow wire into the "main beam" headlights red wire, but the picture actually shows it spliced into the dipped beam (which makes more sense as the DRLs should turn off when dipped or main headlights are on - and main are never on without dipped also, apart from during flashing, when you want the DRLs to stay on).