Fitting the Boomslang Headlight Harness

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Al2O3

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Before Christmas I was reading through yet another thread about headlight brightness, light switches melting etc. Thought I'd try the Boomslang harness out and sent off for one. Just got around to fitting it this afternoon. I'm no auto-electrician, so feel free to tell me where I've gone wrong so that others can learn from my mistakes. Thanks to @The Mad Hat Man for sending me some adhesive heat shrink :)

The harness comes with a short earth lead for each headlight unit, but rather than use those I thought I'd run a cable back to the battery. You need to run the live back to the battery or alternator anyway and the live wire isn't in conduit. So, I thought I'd buy some conduit and run both cables back to the battery in that.
One of the sockets with an earth cable, which I cut the terminal off.
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Pulled a new wire through the existing conduit.
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Bared the wires, soldered them flat alongside each other overlapping about 12mm, then covered the joing with heat shrink and pulled the joint inside the conduit.
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Then I cut the terminal off the other earth wire and fed that wire back down the conduit cutting a little hole for it to come out next to where I had threaded the new earth wire in for the other headlight.
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Above you can see I cut a section of insulation out of my new, continuous earth wire which already went through one section of conduit and was now.connected to the original earth wire. I soldered the second earth wire in to that gap and then put heat shrink on it.
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I then cut the fuse and terminal off the end of the live wire and extended it so that it was 2.5m long from the joint in the picture above.
Then I slid the new earth cable and the original live cable down some new conduit.
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Then I taped it all up.
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This is the modified and fully conduited (is that a word) harness ready to go it the vehicle.
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From the drivers side headlight I ran the harness over the fan cowl.
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Under the radiator hose as you can see in pic above. Then behind the power steering reservoir.
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The the heading for the battery box I went behind the washer bottle to keep it away from hot turbo area.
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Down to the chassis rail.
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And in to the battery box through the earth grommet and it had a gap :rolleyes:
I'd bought some new terminals so I could bolt it to the battery terminal. So, soldered that on.
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Bit of heat shrink.
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Created a lap joint, as with all others, to the end of the live wire (which was blue by the way) and put heat shrink on it.
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I then pulled the conduit through to cover that joint. (I'd puckered the conduit back a bit, so I could create the joint and then pull the conduit back to cover it)
Cleaned the battery terminal with brake cleaner, filed them shiny and then cleaned them again.
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Bolted the cables in place.
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Before and after pictures. However, I stupidly took the first picture, then fitted the harness, then too the second picture. So, there is a time delay between them and the light was just beginning to fade. :rolleyes:
I should have fitted the harness without swapping the bulb connectors. Then take a before picture, swap to the new connectors and take the second. Anyway, for waht it's worth here are the before and after pictures.
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The acid test will be the Mrs as she's like the computer, can see in 16 million colours and can tell the difference between all of them. She'll know if they're brighter or not. :D
 
Looks as if your lights are a lot brighter, top job.
Good to see how you did this in step by step piccies, after going over @The Mad Hat Man 's how to, I have a box full of bits from VWP ready to do my 90 as and when I get round to it, then if I don't manage to cock up I also have all the bits to do the same on my RRC.
Thanks for that. :D:D
 
Cant see the pics, my connection is worse than dial up, any connections though I usually solder, and I also solder anything crimped, it doesn't take much to bring 12 volts down to 11 and your lights will be dull again.
Out of curiosity, how many volts are you now getting at the lights? How many did you have before?
 
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What did you cut that H/S with? A rusty set of toenail clippers :eek:?
Bloody hell, you've got eyes like a hawk. Hadn't noticed that and your right, it does look a bit rough. I used these nail clippers :oops:
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Having said that, if that's the only fault anyone can find, I'll be happy. ;)
 
Looks as if your lights are a lot brighter, top job.
Good to see how you did this in step by step piccies, after going over @The Mad Hat Man 's how to, I have a box full of bits from VWP ready to do my 90 as and when I get round to it, then if I don't manage to cock up I also have all the bits to do the same on my RRC.
Thanks for that. :D:D
Thought I'd better put something up as MHM had sent me the heat shrink. :)
 
Cant see the pics, my connection is worse than dial up, any connections though I usually solder, and I also solder anything crimped, it doesn't take much to bring 12 volts down to 11 and your lights will be dull again.
Out of curiosity, how many volts are you now getting at the lights? How many did you have before?
That's great thinking, nobber. To be honest I never checked it with the multi-meter. I suppose I could swap the connections back and check it.
 
I think the positive wire between the battery terminal and the fuse either needs to be protected with conduit or the fuse move as close as possible to the battery terminal.
Also having fitted all sorts of add ons over the years I would not run the loom over the fan shroud as its bound to get in the way some time in the future during major works, I made that mistake with the series and now always think what if?

All in all it looks a very neat job, much better than the spaghetti spattering that a lot of wiring looks like.
 
Cant see the pics, my connection is worse than dial up, any connections though I usually solder, and I also solder anything crimped, it doesn't take much to bring 12 volts down to 11 and your lights will be dull again.
Out of curiosity, how many volts are you now getting at the lights? How many did you have before?
A good crimp connection doesn’t need soldering, however if you wish a SMALL amount of solder on the wire end doesn’t do any harm.
 
i bought a harness back when i was running wipac crystals, i've now got truck lite leds and i'm told it will make no difference at all to the lights, but may help the switch last longer.

good write up with pics, thats what i like about this forum
 
A good crimp connection doesn’t need soldering, however if you wish a SMALL amount of solder on the wire end doesn’t do any harm.

It will, and the voltage drop in 6 months time might seem insignificant but it really takes very little to wipe 30 percent off a bulbs efficiency , a drop of 1 volt is enough to make your headlights seem crap.
A crimp relies on a cold weld, this simply doesn't happen with ordinary cheap hand tools, you will never get a decent crimp with hand tools, they just arnt up to the job. Unless you have kkk's to spend on a decent automated crimping machine like those used by wiring harness makers then really , you need to use solder to provide any kind of longevity and reliability from the crimped joint. And given the crap quality of over the counter crimp terminals its even more important to use solder. I don't use any kind of terminals if its at all avoidable, I will solder and sleeve the wires every time.
 
It will, and the voltage drop in 6 months time might seem insignificant but it really takes very little to wipe 30 percent off a bulbs efficiency , a drop of 1 volt is enough to make your headlights seem crap.
A crimp relies on a cold weld, this simply doesn't happen with ordinary cheap hand tools, you will never get a decent crimp with hand tools, they just arnt up to the job. Unless you have kkk's to spend on a decent automated crimping machine like those used by wiring harness makers then really , you need to use solder to provide any kind of longevity and reliability from the crimped joint. And given the crap quality of over the counter crimp terminals its even more important to use solder. I don't use any kind of terminals if its at all avoidable, I will solder and sleeve the wires every time.
rubbish.
you do what you want.
 
i bought a harness back when i was running wipac crystals, i've now got truck lite leds and i'm told it will make no difference at all to the lights, but may help the switch last longer.

good write up with pics, thats what i like about this forum

Great sequence and thank you for taking the time to make it. This is a job on my list,so to see how it's done is very useful.
Cheers, I hope it's of use.
I've been out tonight and the lights certainly look brighter to me. As I've said though, the acid test is the Mrs. The Landy is her daily drive so she goes to work in the dark and comes home in the dark at the moment, whereas I usually just drive it during the day at weekends. She'll have the better current memory of what it was like, plus she's annoyingly good at that sort of thing. :mad:
 
Look like a good installation. I recently fitted one myself, but I had previously installed earth points near the headlights in each wing so was able to use the supplied earth leads. I also took my power from the back of the alternator.
 
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