Headlight relay questions for the relay experts

[George Des]

Was doing some work under the hood of my Italian 1967 230Sl after removing the brake booster to send out for a rebuild by Power Exchange--has come back and looks great! While things were out I decided to do some cleanup of the underhood area. One of the areas needing work is around the relays. My setup has the black circular Thermal Time can, the wiper relay, another for the cold start valve/FIP solenoid and one other that I could not quite figure out. It is a Bosch 5 pole SPDT with screw on terminals--see attached pic. The terminals on the relay are numbered as 85, 86, 30/51, and 87, and 87A or B.  I can not read the relay number, but all the terminals are screw on type spades. When the relay is energized it switches between the 87A and 87 terminals. At first I thought that this may be part of the cold start/FIP setup, but upon further investigation, I discovered that the wires leading to it are (1) White, (1) Brown, (1) Gray w/yellow stripe and (1) White w/violet strip. A fifth wire in the bundle is yellow and it is tied off. This tells me that it is somehow connected into the headlight flasher and floor high beam switch. I am the second owner of this car having purchased it in Italy over 37 years ago, so if this is some sort of mod, I've been living with it unknowingly for a long time. After reading some of the posts here from some time back I know there was a running discussion on doing some mod that would allow switching from the high and low beams by using the flasher stalk. I'm wondering if this was the intent of the setup I have. What intrigues me though is that the way the wires are currently running to the leads, it appears that the relay has effectively been bypassed and has actually served no function giving that the current wiring does not allow for the relay coil to be energized in any way I can see. The wires were connected to the relay as follows: Brown to terminal 86, White/violet to terminal 30/51, white to terminal 87A, Gray/yellow to terminal 87 and yellow unconnected. Terminal 85 which one would expect to be connected to the brown ground wire had nothing attached to it. Any thoughts on how this may have been used? Was it the mod that was discussed in prior posts? Can it be made to work as discussed in the posts regarding the flasher/high/low beam discussion?

George Desiderio

[George Des]

Played around with this a bit today. When hooked up as I mentioned here's what happens. With the main headlight switched on, the low beams light up. When the stalk is pulled to the rear, the high beam on the left side lights up but the right low beam shuts off-not good, so something is not right! Rewiring so that the brown is on  terminal 85, the white/ violet on 86, white on 87A and gray/yellow on 87 and the light switch on, the lights do not come on. But pulling back on the stalk does at least energize the coil causing the relay to click so I'm thinking that this is partly how it should be wired. Question now is what should go on 30/51. Should the yellow wire that was taped off and not connected go here and why would the gray/yellow be involved ? From what I can gather this is for the reverse light circuit. I need to play with this further but thought maybe Arthur Dalton, Joe A , Jim Villers and Jeff may have some ideas.

George

[ctaylor738]

Not a guru, but some thoughts.

It doesn't matter whether 85 is ground/86 positive or vice-versa, the relay will function either way.

30 is usually for hot at all times, but could come from the headlight switch.

One way for it to be used would be to have 30 and 86 hot at all times, 85 to get a ground when the stalk is pulled, and 87 connected to the high beams.  That way the lights would flash anytime the stalk was pulled. 

I'm not sure what they had in mind for 87a.

[George Des]

Chuck,

Thanks for taking a look at this. That makes some sense. I think I will try setting it that way to see what happens. I know that gray/green wire goes hot once the light switch is turned. Never considered going to terminal 85 with white/violet since I figured that was certainly for the ground. I pulled my fuze box to take a look at the back to see if the leads were all properly placed. The white lead to the relay leads to the terminal where you would expect to see the white/violet lead, so I gather from this that this is supposed to connect to the white/violet lead at the terminal in order to flash the lights. All very strange as to when this mod was done and why but if it doesn't work when connected as you mentioned, I will just eliminate the relay and put it back the way it the diagrams say it should be from the factory.

[ctaylor738]

In bocca al lupo!

Practicing my Italian.

[George Des]

No luck with switching these leads around on the relay. I bypassed the relay completely and hooked it so the white/violet wire goes to the appropriate fuze box terminal. The low beam lights come on when the light switch is turned on and the high beams come on with the foot switch. When the flash to pass lever is pulled back, only the right side headlight comes on. Any thoughts on where to look now

[George Des]

I've come to the conclusion that this relay serves no useful purpose the way it was set up. After much loking around and reading through the posts here on using a VW relay to modify the stalk/floor switch, I have figured a way to use this relay in conjuction with the VW relay to eliminate at least one of the steps in doing the mod. Essentially this relay can be used to convert the stalk impulse from positive to negative in order to switch the VW relay. I know it adds another relay, but the fact is the relay is already there and wired. If I'not happy with the mod or want to go back to the original setup, it's. simple matter to do.

[Tomnistuff]

Hi George,
My mother would have said of me that I’m usually a day late and a dollar short.  This time I’m a year and a half late but this time, I’ve got a dollar.

I found this old thread while trying to solve a problem with my Italian manual trans version 1967 230SL.  The problem is (was) that I couldn’t find my “reminder sketch” for how to rewire my relays when putting my harness back in the car, particularly the one that has screw terminals for loose wires.  I went through all the iterations that you did, including thinking it was for fuel control.

I had numbered (with tape) the five wires that I disconnected from that mysterious front relay, the one with five blades and screws to connect them, but I couldn’t find a note/sketch that I should have made which labeled the terminals to match the wires.

After studying this thread, only to find that you abandoned the relay, and then continuing my research for the rest of the  day, I finally told myself that I would never have disconnected the wires and labeled them without also labeling the relay terminals.

I was right.  After another hour of searching through all the two-year old paperwork (dated from when I disassembled the car), I finally found my relay “legend”.
Attached is a sketch of the way my relay was wired when I took it apart and how I will put it back together, since the lights were working well when I took it apart, including the highbeam flasher for passing in Italy.

Since I have no schematic that shows the passing high beam flashing system, I am limited in my understanding of how the system works.  I only know that it did and hope that it will again.
If there is anything that you wish to know about my harness and connections, now is the time to ask, since I’m starting to put the harness back in the car as soon as I receive some cloth covered wire to splice into my broken trunk light wire harness.

Thanks for documenting what you did.  It helped.  I hope this helps you too.

Tom Kizer

[George Des]

Tom,

Thanks for chiming in on this. I solved the problem long ago by determining that the relay as installed served absolutely no purpose at all and was the reason it had actually been shunted off. I have since replaced with the proper relay to allow the directional stalk to also work as a dipper instead of the floor dipper. This setup has been discussed on several posts and requires the use of another relay with this setup that was used on VWs. I have the harness setup with this relay but have not gotten around to installing it yet

[Tomnistuff]

I suspect there are several ways to do the job.  The way mine is wired is, I suspect, the solution chosen by M-B for the Italian market.  It's probably the first way they thought of, so they just did it.
When I get mine back together the way it was when I took it apart, I'll resurrect this old thread one last time to describe the results of my lighting tests.

Tom Kizer
Quebec

[114015]

George,

Only now that I found your thread and discussion on the Italian version relay-operated headlight switch ...

Well,
I don't know the whole truth
but...

your terminals you found in your engine bay really look factory to me - no aftermarket tinkering!

Well,
the white with violet stripe is the power wire for the headlight flasher, that's for sure factory for all Pagodas (also non-Italian delivered).
White (high beam) and yellow (low beam) are usually the colors for the right headlight (on the left side they have additional black marker stripes).
Brown is self-explaining (ground) but  gray-yellow ....? I don't remember that wire.
Ah, that one is the usual color for back-up light (right and left) on the tail lights.

George,
is (was) there power on the grey-yellow wire when you turn on the headlight swith on the dash (clockwise), and is it a 2.5 mm diameter wire?

The only quick assumption for the time being I have is as follows:

white-violet powers the relay and switches incoming current from 85 (as Tom said) either to 87 or 87a.
This means white and yellow have to go to 87 and 87a and from there, these wires have to go to fuses 9 and 11 (incoming). Fuses 9/10 are connected and 11/12 are connected. Fuses 9/10 outgoing are for high beam (left and right) and 11/12 for low beam (left and right).
As such it only makes sense to me if the yellow (cut off) wire you found in the engine bay and the white wire go back to the fuse box and provide current to the headlights low and high beam.
Basically in the same way as yellow and white wires on the foot toggle switch does.
Gray-yellow must get its current from the light switch (terminal 56) if this should make sense and direct it to terminal 85 on the Italian relay.
30/51 and 86 (brown) switch the incomming light current (grey-yellow) from terminal 85 towards 87 or 87a.

At least that's how I understand the system....


The only thing I do not understand yet is how the foot dimmer switch and the relay (driven by the turnsignal stalk at the steering column) do interact side by side...

Whatever,
maybe some of the wires (yellow, white, grey-white) haven't been connected correctly on your car anymore when the wires were redirected after disconnecting the relay.

At leas that is how I propose the scenario is/wason your car ...


Achim
(colored wiring diagram illustrator)

[George Des]

Achim

Thanks. I worked past this and everything is working correctly now. I will go back and review what I did to sort it out in light of your thoughts. I mentioned that I made up a harness that includes a VW Bosch relay thT at some point I will connect in in order to bypass the foot dipper switch and have the stalk work as most modern setups do. How did your fuel pump rebuilds go?

George