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2G How To Wire Fog Lamps As Automatic Daytime Running Lights (without parking or headlamps)

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We'll start this with the standard disclaimer: This is a modification made to our car. The following article shows you how this was done. You alone take full responsibility for any modification you make to your own car.

After having many cars pull out in front of us, seemingly not seeing our low-slung DSM, I wanted to have some lights to help us be seen. When I remembered, I would turn on the parking lights, but often I would forget, until some moron pulled a stupid move.

I'm not generally a fan of Daytime Running Lights (DRL), but with all the work that goes into our cars, an insurance check and a body shop are not going to get us our cars back using today's Book values. So, I decided that the coolest I could make DRLs look, would be to run the fog lights alone.

Here is the diagram of how to wire your fog lights for DRLs, without running your parking or headlights. The best part is, you can still override the fogs to stay off, by turning off the dash fog light switch.

Here is the diagram of how I wired the circuit. You will need a 12vdc automotive relay -- generally handles 30Amps or more --, some heavy gauge wire, and several spade crimp connectors. We also bought the socket for the relay so that we could wire it up and solder the connections, and then simply plug the relay into the base, in case we ever need to replace the relay at some future date.

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The power to run the fog lamps comes from the battery connection. The power is not applied to the fog lamps unless there is power to the Radio fuse. We were careful about several things:
1) The connection to the Radio fuse is on the "Supply" side of the fuse, so that the power to run the relay was not passing through the Radio fuse itself.
2) The connection to the Fog Lamps fuse is on the "To Switch" side of the fuse. This runs the power through the dash switch so that it can be overridden for the Fog Lamps to remain off.

Here are the pictures of the actual install. You can see the grounding connection with the blue crimp eyelet on it:

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The exposed portion of the wiring was wrapped in loom cover and sealed with electrical tape to help keep out the elements. The relay was attached right next to the fuse panel to keep the wire runs short.

I had to notch the cover for the wires to exit, but you can see it makes for a stock-looking appearance:

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Now we can drive and always have some lights on the front to help drivers see us who might have looked right over the top of us before. If we need to idle the car, or run the engine for any reason that's not driving, we can punch the Fog Lamp switch and turn the DRLs off.
 
UPDATE: FOG LAMPS AS DRLs

We came across these Add-A-Circuit holders and incorporated one into the fusebox for the DRL project, as a test fit. It provides a fuse for the fuse socket it plugs into, as well as a fuse for the pigtail (new circuit):

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Here's how it looks installed into the fusebox. It doesn't interfere with the cover fitment. We'll be getting a second one to use in the Radio Fuse location, to put the final touches on this mod:

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Picture with the second Add-A-Circuit in place:

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Sorry but why did you add 15a fuse to the radio with 10a fuse? Trying to understand that portion
 
Yours is a Canadian DSM. IIRC, they came with headlight DRLs. You’ll have to consult a wiring diagram first, to see if your fog lights are wired differently than the US DSMs.
 
Yours is a Canadian DSM. IIRC, they came with headlight DRLs. You’ll have to consult a wiring diagram first, to see if your fog lights are wired differently than the US DSMs.
No it's from the states imported to BC then to Alberta however will the haynes manual do or is there something better.
 
Use the resources here. There are differences in the 2GA and 2GB models so Hayes may not distinguish. Start withe the DSM Maintenance Guide and search for the other references here for the detailed electrical diagrams.

Since this is a How To write up, if you have problems going forward, please start a separate thread. Thank you.
 
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