Headlight wiring demons

[CharmcityLJ]

First post for me on my 06 LJ, but it certainly won't be the last cause this things got some demons. The previous owner had a bunch of auxiliary lighting I wanted to get rid of to bring it closer back to stock. After doing so the driver side headlight stopped working. I've spent all week troubleshooting, swapped the headlights to make sure they both work, double checking grounds wires, etc. The previous owner spliced what look like dorman headlamp sockets to the factory wiring, so I pull those apart to check the connections. The factory wiring on the non working light was corroded and rusty. Even after I stripped back the insulation, the ground wire had like dust in it and one of the other wires looked grayish instead of bright copper. I'm guessing water got into an old headlight, maybe the reason the PO put aftermarket lights on in the first place.

Electrical is not my strong suit, but this is the problem right? Could I have aped something up when I removed the old light bar and cowl lights?

Can I just splice into the working headlight and run across to the non-working one now and then cap off the bad wiring or am I looking at re-wiring the whole harness?

Any help would would be appreciated cause for now it's daytime driving only.

 

[C.J. Roberts]

Can I just splice into the working headlight and run across to the non-working one now and then cap off the bad wiring or am I looking at re-wiring the whole harness?

You can do that just to get yourself back on the road, but here's something to ponder: most of us here consider factory headlights to be marginal at best.
You can upgrade to different lights for better performance.
There is a thread here on replacing the factory lights with a Toyota kit. The kit comes with a wiring harness that plugs into the factory headlight connector and should remedy your problem and give you better lighting too. Here's the thread: https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/toyota-lights-on-your-tj-cheap-quality-led-alternative.52840/

 

[txbemis69]

the toyota headlight kit referenced above is the shit if you’re not looking at the led type lights. one of the best mods. i’ve done.

 

[LONGJP2]

Are the lights (and plugs) still original?
Some convert the plugs to run JK headlights.

 

[txbemis69]

Are the lights (and plugs) still original?
Some convert the plugs to run JK headlights.

toyota wiring harness goes straight to your battery and plugs into your factory passenger headlight socket. toyota harness then goes to driver’s side headlight. you can just plug toyota lights into factory plugs on jeep. toyota harness has relays and fuses best i remember. super simple and toyota oem quality. i believe they’re oem for the toyota fj.

 

[LONGJP2]

toyota wiring harness goes straight to your battery and plugs into your factory passenger headlight socket. toyota harness then goes to driver’s side headlight. you can just plug toyota lights into factory plugs on jeep. toyota harness has relays and fuses best i remember. super simple and toyota oem quality. i believe they’re oem for the toyota fj.

I was asking the OP, not you.

 

[CharmcityLJ]

Thanks for the ideas and suggestions. I ended up going with a headlight wiring harness from jeepcables.com. It’s wired for an XJ so the lengths are off, but I was able to make it work mounting the relays by the passenger side headlight. Hard to say what difference they made since I’m coming from only one working headlight, but so far so good.