The headlight socket (the harness that connects the car wires to the headlight) recently metled. I was able to find a replacement part from autozone but when rewiring it, it didn’t work. Does anyone know the proper wiring for a 9003/H4 type headlight connector? This is for my 1996 Subaru legacy.
Thanks,
David
The other headlight socket doesn’t give you a clue? No, you can’t use it. They’re not identical.
On the left headlamp, the red/blue wire goes to the center terminal. It doesn’t matter which terminal the other two wires go to.
On the right headlamp, the black/yellow wire goes to the center terminal. It doesn’t matter which terminal the other two wires go to.
A headlight socket has, what, 3 wires? How hard can this be?
Thanks hellokit, I’ll try this tomorrow. Jaywb, what’s with the atitude? Would you like some tougher problems?
I agree,not splitting the ATOM here.
sesame street ,one of these things is not like the other.(but darn close)pin 1 to pin 1,pin 2 to pin 2,pin 3 to pin 3(wire colors are neither here nor there)a conductor leading to the same pin,does not have a clue what color the insulator is.
does that help?
hope so.
best wishes.
With something so stunningly simple as this you could have had it resolved long ago if you’d taken the trouble to think it through. But you went looking for someone else to hold your hand as soon as you encountered something unexpected.
Even if there were 3 wires there are only 8 permutations of how to connect the wires. With the least little bit of thought you could have brought that down to 2. But instead, you decided it was beyond your comprehension and went looking for someone else to solve it for you.
That’s where the attitude came from.
The purpose of this message board is to get advice, not attitude. Is everyone supposed to pre-qualify their car problems to make sure they are serious enough to merit a real response from such busy and important people as you? People want help or advice and, as my mom always said, if you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all.
thank you bloody_knuckles.
Oh by the way, how do you screw something up as simple as permutations? Lets see now the formula for permutations is:
n_P_k=n!/(n-k)! where n is the total # available (3) and k is the # we are picking, 3. So was this where the attitude came from?
Now this is not just a headlight wiring issue. I also don’t know if the lamp is burned out. Maybe one of the wires coming from the fuse box is bad, maybe the wiring harness autozone sold me is bad. Is this so stunningly simple?
So how is it a guy as smart as you can’t figure out how to wire a headlight socket?
I am a relative newcomer to this forum, but it seems to me from the many posts and replies that I have read, there is more than a little bit of “attitude” on this forum. If someone takes the time to post a question, I will assume that the question is a serious one and the answer is important to the person who posted it. If I have anything helpful to contribute, I will reply; if not, then I won’t, but I will not go out of my way to insult someone just for asking a question.
thekidsinthehall,
The wire colors are those from the wiring diagram that I got from the Web site ARRC (public library). Their accuracy is not guaranteed.
If someone wants a head-scratcher of a headlight wiring diagram, try one for the DRL (Daylight Running Lamps) circuits. It’s FUN!
The 9003/H4’s wiring arrangement is like this: the middle connection is the positive wire and there are two connections on either side that that are grounds. The grounds determine which way the electricity will flow. Mess the sides up when you are wiring up the connections, and you will have your low beam/high beam inverted.
Today I was replacing the original H4 socket, which melted into the connection of the headlight lamp. My advice to anyone doing the same thing would be to draw a diagram of the original connections (note which colored wire goes to which side) before you start cutting the wires on the old socket, and keep it with you when you are putting the new socket in.
This being said, lets say if you lost your original diagram, then you might need some way to find out which wire is which. The first thing to do is find which one is powered, and then try to find which one determines high/low beam.
Best of luck