Mysterious Electrical Gremlins at work here?

Hi Jack,

This certainly does sound very odd however there is sure to be a logical reason for the operation you describe.

For a start, the drive for the driving lights would (or at least, should) come from the high beam circuit and if so could only operate when the high beam is activated as they once did. Are you quite sure that you are observing the high and low beam activation correctly? Because if you observed incorrectly then the system would be operating as you describe. If you are sure then you could try the following:

Remove all wires from the switch then temporarily join the red & black wires that go to the driving light circuit. Now switch on the headlights and go from low to high beam to see in which case the driving lights come on. If that test is satisfactory return only those two wires to the switch, switch the headlights on and select high beam, then check that the driving light switch is operating correctly, changing the wires to different terminals until it does.

Then connect the earth wire to the remaining terminal and check the LED operation. If the LED is not operating correctly try reversing the red and black wires whilst leaving the LED earth wire where it is. If the LED still does not work correctly then it suggests that the wiring to the driving lights is in the 'earthy side' of the circuit and you will not be able to use the LED.

Now if the above does not produce the required result then I can only suggest that you do indeed have Gremlins fooling with your electrics and it may need the application of a multimeter and a bit of electrical understanding! LOL

Let's know how you get on.

Jack,

I had a similar problem recently when I fitted an LED light bar to my 79 series. Already had 2 Hella 4000's fitted so decided to use a seperate switch(with led) for the light bar. Also replaced the old relay with one of those New Era double relays, the ones with 2 x 30 amp fuses visible on one side.

After the initial set-up, only had driving lights on low beam, and what should have been a piece of p*ss turned into a frustrating couple of hours. Funny how a little mistake can make 12v positive/negative circuits into a Black Art!!!

Before going further should mention that I have an ARB or similar, heavy duty wiring loom fitted,(and HID headlights.....sssshh) so had to to take the high beam switching as a loop to the relay and D/Light switch. This meant the relay was not earthed directly, but through the normal Toyota headlight circuit......hope I'm making sense of this?

To control the light bar, ran a wire from the original D/L switch, off the input side, across to the new led switch. This saved running extra wiring all way from high beam plug, under the bonnet.

Think where I went wrong, was I didn't put the new relay into the "loop", and just earthed it. Once I changed the wiring, and included the new relay into the "loop" from the high beam circuit it all, thankfully, started working properly.

Don't know if this rave has helped you Jack, but you ring me if you want. 0427 727 302. These Toyota negative switching circuits can create some pain, trying to get them to work.

Bob.

Thank you all for your replies and assistance. Friday is 'electrical' day, so I shall work through your responses and post and update as to my results.

The pic of the led light has exactly the same contact setup as mine, so it is an encouraging start.

Thanks again.

Jack