Electrical & Audio Guides
Fitting Spotlights (By: Andrew Attenborough)
You will need:
- Spotlights - from Mk2 Fiesta XR2, 1.4S or Mk4 Escort XR3i ¹
- Spotlight mounts - from Mk2 Fiesta XR2, 1.4S
- Lots of wire ²
- Relay and socket (relay with terminals numbered 87, 86, 85 and 30 )
Go to a scrap yard and find either a 1.4S or an XR2. Take the front bumper off (by unbolting the nut inside the front wheel arch and underneath the head lamp under the bonnet).
Then get a 10mm spanner between the bodywork and the radiator to unbolt the spotlight mount. There are two bolts for each mount- feel behind the valence to unbolt these, scraping your knuckles on the radiator in the process. Pull the mounts off the front of the car, then snip the wires to the spotlights. Fitting them on the front of your car is a reversal of this- all the holes are already there on all models.
Also whilst at the scrap yard, access the relay cage behind the fuse box (may as well do it in the same car as before). Pull off one of the two relay blocks attached to the side of the main relay cage (I used the yellow relay), and cut the wires to the relay. If you get one with an in-line fuse attached to it this is very handy. This way you have a fuse to wire the lamps up to, a relay and a simple way of mounting the relay inside the car.
To wire up the lamps, use a connecting block and connect each wire from the relay to a terminal in the block. Then, make the following connections:
- Terminal 87 - to lights
- Terminal 86 - connect this to the main beam circuit
- Terminal 85 - connect to earth
- Terminal 30 - connect this to the fuse
Connect the other terminal from the fuse to Fuse 13 or 14 in the main fuse box (these supply the main beam lights).
Terminal 86 is the only awkward one - this has to be connected to the red/white wire from the blue relay in the relay cage. Scotch clips (those little blue clamp things that connect 2 wires together) are very handy for this sort of work ³.
To connect a wire to the lamps, thread a wire either through the same grommet as the rest of the wiring loom, or through the same grommet as the speedo cable, which is easier to access. Then connect this to both spotlights on the front of the car, and they should work when the main beam is turned on. If you want to fit a switch on them, just put a switch on the wire going to terminal 86, then you can use this to turn them on or off, but they will still only work when the main-beam lights are on.
Notes:
¹ An alternative to getting the Ford spot lights is to use the round Ring ones that are available from most car accessory shops, these were fitted to some Fiesta's and Escort's instead of the Ford ones anyway and normally fit straight into the Ford brackets.
² The wire that feeds power to the spotlights must be capable of handling 10 amps at least - each spotlight draws approx 4.5 amps with a 55 watt bulb.
³ If you're having trouble finding a wire to connect the relay to then you can tap into the steering column stalk wire that controls main beam or one of the main beam wires that feed the ordinary head lights.
