I was at the scrap yard getting a new headlight unit for my escort van today (mine had water in it) and I took the 2 front spot lights/fog lights from this C plate escort with the intention of putting them onto my G plate mk4 escort van. To take them out they were earthed to a bolt on the lower right hand side of the engine bay, and then they had a plug fitting into a wire just by the fuse box.

I got them home (fitted the headlight first) then set about trying to get these spotlights in. The earth is in the same place, but obviously as my van is 4 years older so the engine is slightly differently laid out. So I haven't got a plug for the wiring which was sort of half expected, but I tried to the wire the lights straight from the bulb wiring on the right headlight. I wired it into the yellow wire and the white wire separately but nothing happened either time. So I tried a just putting the wiring straight from the battery to test if it was even working, and nothing happened, so I cut off one of the lamps, earthed it and held it to the battery but nothing happened atall.

I've taken them apart, the bulbs look basically brand new, filaments still intact, the wiring is all fine and the connections were all good, but I cannot figure out why it won't work, im just looking for any help, I'm sure it's something stupidly simple and easy that I'm overlooking, or i may need to get a whole relay and switch and fuse fitted in which case I probably won't bother so any ideas are gratefully received, thank you!

 

You need a relay anyway otherwise you risk burning out your indicator stalk(main beam).All you need then is the trigger from the rear of your headlight once you have your relay wired and maybe an earth for the spots.How did you earth the lights when you tried them ? i assume they are plastic bodied.

 

Hi mate,theres a good chance the bulbs are just blown,if you've held it across the battery and it doesn't light up then that's most likely your answer.
As for wiring in a fuse and relay it takes about 10 minutes and is really easy.
If you have access to a multimeter,put it on the ohms setting and connect it to either wire on the lights,there should be a very low number on the meter which tells you the circuit is complete.
With lighting or car electrics in general is 99% of the time just bad connections,corrosion etc and just needs a good clean up to sort.

 

Excellent, thanks for your help both of you, I got some new bulbs today and I'm about to fit them and test it out, also, how exactly do I go about fitting a relay? Haha, this is the first car I've actually done any work on so I'm still pretty low on the electrics knowledge haha

 

http://www.thefiesta.com/guides/elec...otlights.shtml

 

That links really handy, cheers James!
I've put the new Bulbs in and the lamps still arn't working, not even direct from the battery still, I dunno what's going on haha, I think I'll have to re-wire the whole thing