I need help wiring grill lights, and I am not good at electrical, I can solder and do speaker wire, but I have no idea outside of that.
I have two grill lights that are mounted to grill guard, (both grounded under the hood to chassis) and wired to a toggle switch in the cab. I need to know what to hook hot wires up to in the cab? I know I need to put a fuse in the line somewhere, but how big a fuse? How do I tell, for future reference, what size I need? I hope to wire a new winch and a CB radio next, and I am just looking for a better understanding of adding accessories.

This job is for a '79 k5 blazer.

 

The fuse size depends on how many watts your lights are. I'm going to assume they are 55w (that's what most driving lights are aside from offroad lights) If you want to find out how many amps the lights are pulling you take the wattage and divide it by the voltage. (12ish) 55w/12v= 4.6a so together your lights will pull about 9 amps. So a 15 amp fuse should be good as you don't want to run a 10amp fuse as it might get hot.

You can get power from the battery or you can find a source in the cab. I get mine from the batt. to make it easier.

Now it's safer to run the lights with a relay if you can. Here is a diagram if you decide to run a relay. This diagram is for 4 lights, but it works the same for just two.


Any questions?

 

LOL I LOVE that pic Thogert but they may not understand what's what.... The switch side is a low voltage wire (14/16 guage) that runs to the cab & actuates the relay to send the high current to the lights.
I agree to get the power from the battery or the + on the fuse box under the hood & run that wire to the cab to make the relay work. Ground out the switch in the cab, have the relay mounted under the hood & the power side of it leading to the lights. The ground for the lights can be anywhere there is a solid - ground, IE body, bumper etc.

 

Thanks guys!! I am going to try to get started on this project this week, and I will give it a shot. And the wiring diagram is great, I enjoy the visual-aide of the light covers!

 

Haha yeah it looks like a kid drew it. It gets the point across though.

Thanks for clarifying Rotti, I didn't really explain how the relay works at all.