Hey Guys,

With all of the interest in HID fog lights lately, I went ahead and put together some information on the pertinent areas.

[Because there are some idiots out there who either love there fellow lawyer or don’t know how to connect wires.]

DISCLAIMER: Within this documentation there are no warranties, expressed, written or implied. The owner of the vehicle or individual following these directions is fully liable for any damages or injuries they cause and the writer of this information is not liable for any damages or injuries which are a result of following these instructions. Modifying OEM lighting on vehicles is illegal and will cause you to not meet DOT standards. This can result in fines and tickets from your local authority.

Options:

1. Build your own HID fog lights by buying OEM HID equipment off ebay and then rebasing the HID D2R bulbs to fit your 9145 bulb opening.
OR
2. Buy a 9005 HID kit off ebay and then make a aftermarket harness to protect your OEM harness.

WARNING: In this scenario DO NOT GO OVER 5000k for bulb temperature. OEM HID bulbs are 4300k, which is the optimum for white light that travels the greatest distance and lights up objects. Anything over 5000k and you’ll have hues of purple, green and other colors. Sure you’ll have an interesting looking color but it’ll be great for attracting COPS and you won’t light up as much. The higher the temperature (kelvins) of the bulb, the less it lights up on the road (once you’re past 4300k).

Verdict:

Long of the short, I'd say go with this after kit.

Would OEM parts retrofitted for your purpose give you better output, last longer and be more efficient? Yes

Would that be a lot more work getting a HID bulb (which is a D2R bulb for this application) to fit in the 9145 socket? Yes

The easiest way to go about doing this would be to buy the kit and then make the aftermarket harness to protect your fog light harness from being burned up by your aftermarket HID kit.

If you're using the HID kit directly onto your OEM fog light harness, odds are you're not going to hurt anything for two years or so (based on amount of usage of the kit and your fog lights). However, there are always exceptions to the rule and it's stink something aweful to burn up that OEM harness.

Step #1:
Take your happy rear end to ebay and find the 9005 HID 5000k kit that Matt bought. Then take your parts list that I provide below and travel to your nearest Radio Shack or other electronic parts supplier to build the harness that will protect your stock harness (it’s really cheap insurance in the event you over heat something, that way you’re not paying hundreds to replace a Ford OEM harness)

Step #2:
Build your harness on your work bench. Take measure measurements of how long your wire connections will have to be. You don’t want to build this harness, go to install it and find out you made your wires too short. Remember to solder your connections properly; this means heat the wire and then touch the solder to the wire. Then use heat shrink to cover the connection

A 9005 or 9145 plug has two wires, one red = hot, and one black = ground. You’ll obviously be tying into the red hot wire to the 85 pin on the relay to be able to turn your fog lights on and off from inside the truck. Convenient ground locations can be found by your headlights rather then running ground wires back to your battery.

An overview of the parts that you’ll need is as follows:

4 pin relay
Inline fuse holder
25 amp fuse
14 gauge automotive wire
Heat shrink (large enough to get around 14 gauge wire)
3 Ground rings
Industrial strength Velcro (found in home depot near the paint I believe on an end cap)
Wire loom to keep your wires bunched up and safe
Electrical tape



Step #3:
You just finished building your harness. Now install the wire harness, along with your HID kit. I used the industrial Velcro to hold the ballast in place on the section of open bumper above the fog light. It has stayed in place solidly for four months through various degrees of bad weather.

Step #4:
Test it out. You should also go ahead and do the fog light bypass mod that Myst has given in-depth directions for in order to prevent blowing anything by having your fog lights on and off for only brief periods of time.

Hope this helps,

Duke

 

F150 Duke,

Let me be the first to thank you for taking the time to work this one out and share it with everyone! I'll probably be asking Santa for the parts.

 

You deftinitely get some rep points from me... nice post Duke. I sincerely appreciate it. I may have a few more questions later on about this... this thing that pays the bills called work is in the way right now though.

I *will* be in touch. Also, I'll PM you back a little later... slammed with getting a proposal out to install a few piezometers right now.

 

Hey RP,

No problem! Glad I could help. That darn inconvenience called work has a great grip on me too. This is going to be one of those "fun" weeks.

Duke

 

Fog light bypass mod I need more on this. I searched but nothing. Just got 9005 6000k HID's

 

Mine have been purchased. I will probably begin constructing the relays as early as Wed. Thanks again Duke!

 

Duke..

Nice write up man.. Any pictures of your fogs lights with the HID bulbs mounted in there? Pictures of where the ballest are mounted?

Thanks

 

Just in case you guys want to make a few less connections under your hoods, you might want to look for the style of relay I used on my driving lamp installation. It has in integral ATO fuse location right on the relay. Mine happened to come with my Hella 550 kit, but I'm looking for another to use when Santa brings my HID kit for the fogs. Here's what it looks like:

 

I love those relays, but they are almost $12 each, ouch! I had some left over from an install I did a while back but when I tried to buy them again the price scared me off. Do you have a cheaper place to buy them??

 

Unfortunately, no. Like you, I have a few left over from previous installation work that I keep locked up for stuff just like this. In the grand scheme of things though, twelve bucks for a more professional installation is worth it in my book!

 

Anyone have a link where you can buy that relay / fuse holder?

 

The relay you need for my harness can be found at Radio Shack. The other relay he shows should either be at radio shack or definitely at an automotive parts store.

I don't currently have any pictures to show, but my goal is to take some tonight and post them on Thursday. I've been saying for months that I'd take pictures of the headlights and I'll go ahead and take pictures of everything now.

Duke

 

I do like that relay. $12 is worth it to me. It's a very clean look and drops the worry of having to fetch a fuse holder and such.

If anyone locates these things, please post!

Duke -- I look forward to reading your how-to on making the harness. Hopefully, pending the stars and moons align, I'll have my fogs before the weekend... guess what I'll be doing Saturday?

 

Haha, do you mean you haven't read it yet? Or were you asking for a more in depth write-up?

Duke

 

Whoops... I misread that. I was referring more to this... ^^^^^^