Bottomfeeder

OK,

I have here in my possesion my HID kit and as I have the afternoon free I thought now would be as godd time as any to fit them.
The fitting instructions are excellent (even I understand them) and I have been supplied with every loom and relay known to man, so no worries there.
I am however rather worried that I have read or heard somewhere that the headlight wiring on a scoob is back to front (ie red is earth and black is live)
Can someone please confirm/deny this ?

Chelspeed

On the later cars, MY02 on at least may be others, the wiring on the main beam is back to front in that there is a permanent 12V on one side of the bulb and the other side is switched to ground to make the light come on. Not sure what colours are what but this sounds like what you are remembering seeing written here.

If your HID is main beam then one answer is to connect both of the relay trigger coil connections to both sides of the current bulb wiring rather than just connecting one side to the main beam wiring and earthing the other side as you would with normal headlight wiring.

But if you get it wrong the worst that can happen is that the main beam HID will stay on permanently and not be switched on and off with the switches as you want so have a play (but watch the HID to ballast wiring, big voltages there).

Bottomfeeder

Thanks your right btw, had all this confirmed by someone who has fitted HIDs to their classic .................sounds like a job for someone who knows what they are doing. What hair I have, I'd like to keep!!

Pitzi

Excuse the utter ignorance, but what is the difference between std & HID lights??

Chelspeed

Standard lights use a bulb with a wire filament in it, you put 12V across the bulb and current flows thro the filament, it gets hot and glows producing light.

HID (high intensity discharge) is also known as gas discharge or xenon (but not to be confused with "xenon uprated" normal bulbs....). HID "bulbs" have no filament, a control box takes the 12V in the car produces a couple of thousand volts which strikes an arc (like a constant spark jumping the gap) between two electrodes in the bulb and this arc produces the light.

HID's cost loads more to buy (£300 a pair or so) due to the need for more sophisticated bulbs (£70 each or so at the moment) and control boxes or ballast boxes. The HID's allegedly produce the same amount of light as a 300W bulb while only consuming about half the electrical power of a coventional 55W bulb. They certainly produce a more intense and blue light. You'll have noticed them fitted to current model BMW's and Merc's.

Downside is that to fit them on a new car the rulemakers insist on them only being fitted in conjunction with automatic level adjustment and headlamp washers. This ups the price considerably and HID or xenon pight options on new cars can be up to £1k.

You can buy HID kits to replace the conventional bulbs on cars not offered with HID light options from a number of places for about £300 a pair, see Autolamps on line for example. Whether you can fit these without levelling and washers is a grey area...