Write-Up: Low Beams + Brights On at Same Time

Does anyone who has the highbeams relayed to turn the low beams on have any melting issues with stock bulbs? Considering doing this tonight.

Bump

I have had the two light on at the same time for about a year .
I have experienced no light bulb burn out so far.
I personaly would recommend the system from my night driving.
I have had only one flash back from other drivers since i had the HD lights installed.
I got the Keep the two light sources on at the same time from the good people on this foram.
Thank you all.
Firefighter.

Quote :

Does anyone who has the highbeams relayed to turn the low beams on have any melting issues with stock bulbs? Considering doing this tonight.

No issues. I've driven at night with the brights on for maybe 10-20 mins at a time.

Hi all,

Know this is an older post but super keen to do this modification to my new to me ‘97 Riviera. As many know it is a low mileage original supercharged Riviera that I purchased early last year and imported to Australia.

As we live in the country, lighting is critical to avoid our kangaroos at night and early mornings.

I am using a Narva double relay to have the low beams come on with the high beams but am somewhat confused about the wiring for this modification. Have wired up standard relays for QH conversions on other Buicks but not sure on this.

Just need to know which wires go to which terminal numbers.





Have sent a message to the writer Eldo but happy if others chime in.

my ‘97 has the DRLs which I want to keep but not sure how this all wires in using the double relay. Do I need to add a third relay to cover the DRLs? Picture of what I am using below and BTW this relay has both #87 terminals powered (not #87 and #87A) when the relay is switched, giving four powered terminals when both relays are switched.

Many thanks in advance.

Rodney

Has been a while but finally got this sorted. At first ended up using a single 40A relay from a handful a friend gave me. Seems that one out of half a dozen tried was happy to remain OFF until the HIGH BEAM was selected.

All other relays wanted to switch on the LOW BEAM lights at the same time as the DRL which are the HIGH BEAM at half strength on 6V.

Really wanted to use two relays so I modified a Narva brand 30A relay as it has a removable cover, not seam welded as the others are. What I did was bend the copper band which acts like a spring and provides the lever action to hold open the contact arm back until power is applied.

Tweaking the amount of bending found a sweet spot where the relay would remain OFF with the DRLs running, but would switch ON the LOW BEAM when the HIGH BEAMS were on. You can see in the photo the green arrow pointing to
the arm that needs to be bent.

After that success decided to try tweaking the original DOUBLE NARVA 30A relay which I reall wanted to use. The double relay is neat and uses a single mount. These relays use a wound coil spring to hold open the contacts so tried using solder to build up the height hoping to add extra tension to the spring.

This was an abject failure so decided to solder some nickel silver from a piece of model railway track as an attaching point increasing the spring tension. As luck would have it by soldering it at an offset to the lower pivot gave it the right tension where it remains off at 6-7volts but closes at 12V. You can see in the photo the new higher spring mount.

Soldering up the other relay gave similar results that I was able to test with a 0-12V DC transformer and multimeter. Next step is to try this on the Riviera and confirm the results.



Will be back.
Rodney

Way to go Rod!  
I'm really surprised that so many relays trigger so 'early'...  But your mod sound good, kinda' like when I was
modding a turn-signal flasher to get the desired timing when I installed the sequential turn signals.

Can't wait for the final results,
Mark/Eldo

Well, go back to plan A. After trying to get the wiring to bend around to the new double relay decided not to go that path. I deliberately used heavy 4mm wire to avoid voltage drop but find the taped loom is too stiff to bend at 90degrees in such a short space.

It was tending to pull away from the relay so decided to revert back to what I had which is one relay fixed to the inner fender as shown and the other on a longer loom laying loose alongside the coolant recovery tank. (Second photo)

It is well hidden there and not in danger of being damaged, so left it that way. If I wanted to revisit this again I would use lighter gauge wire and find a single piece base for the double relay to sit in.

But for now, it works with the two single relays that I modified.

Cheers Rodney

Looks great Rodney - especially with all those nice, clean ultra-low mileage parts around!