fitting fog lamps

Mickey taker · Post by **Mickey taker** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 4:30 pm

Has anyone any experience of fitting non factory front fog lamps to a BX ?
any pictures of anyones efforts would be appreciated.

I have a set of ring fog lamps from the golf which I would like to fit to the meteor.

Mike P has sent me a proper front fog light switch ( thanks Mike ) which I want to use but need help identifying what wire go's where as they are all green except one, which is brown.

Post by **mat_fenwick** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 4:44 pm

Have you got the corresponding socket for the switch? I can post up a photo showing which wires go where.

EDIT - You obviously have the socket, otherwise you wouldn't be talking about wire colours!

Mickey taker · Post by **Mickey taker** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 5:30 pm

yes I have Mat so posting that up would be a great help, thank you.

I also need to work out the best way to fit them to the bumper

Post by **mat_fenwick** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 9:27 pm

My best efforts in Paint to number the wires...number 1 corresponds to bottom left of the switch as you look at it from the front.

1 Linked to 5 = sidelight supply
2 Linked to 3 (as standard) = output to fog light relay
3 Linked to 2 (as standard) = output to fog light relay
4 = Earth for switch illumination
5 Linked to 1 = sidelight supply

The reason I linked 1 to 5 is that I wanted both the switch illumination and the ability to operate the foglights when just on sidelights. In my experience when foglights are really needed (rare) it can be better running them without dipped beam.

The relay I located near the washer bottle on the bulkhead, with the rest of the relays. To mount mine I just cut a couple of slats from the front bumper and mounted them in the factory location - the mounting holes were already there in the right place! Dunno what size yours are though.

JayW · Post by **JayW** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 9:28 pm

Mick, i can have a look on sunday if you want, i'll also bring you a switching relay for them if you don't have one (i'll even prewire it if you need).

If i'd known earlier i've got 3 pairs on the front of the TGD i no longer need

Mickey taker · Post by **Mickey taker** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:03 pm

Mat , Jay ,
I officially love you both and don't care who knows it
( sorry Doc if you read this I've moved on

)

the relay would be a great help Jay

these are the fogs I'm hoping to use

electrokid · Post by **electrokid** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:06 pm

I fitted Ring foglamps - had to drill extra holes in the corners of the metal surrounds and hank bushes in the original Citroen foglamp surrounds.

It's no longer legal to use foglamps without having headlamps on as well - which defeats the original purpose of foglamps - to have a flat beam which illuminates the road without illuminating fog between your eyes and the illuminated road surface and curbs - legislation generated by the inexperienced.

Post by **mat_fenwick** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 11:47 am

I didn't realise that about fog lights and dipped beam….but judging from the cars I see it would seem that it is compulsory to have fog lights on with dipped beam!

BX Meteor · Post by **BX Meteor** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:19 pm

the factory fitted fog lights on my 54 plate Accord operate with sidelights only, I've seen several cars driving in the UK in that mode

electrokid · Post by **electrokid** » Wed Feb 08, 2012 11:23 am

the factory fitted fog lights on my 54 plate Accord operate with sidelights only, I've seen several cars driving in the UK in that mode

Any cars produced before that legislation came into being will do that - and so will mine because that's the way I wired it

I don't think the government department who issue type approvals care that much to bother with it anyway.

The need for foglights is so very occasional these days. In the 1950s on November the 5th every other garden had a bonfire and fireworks - the combination of that and the use of coal fires for heating meant that November the 6th was always a 'pea-souper' - you were never quite sure if the hand in front of your face was your own.

The legislation used to state that foglights could be used 'in fog and falling snow' but recently I've used them on a road with low earth banks to illuminate the bank where the headlights (on the Granada) were inadequate. Another experience in a granny - on one occasion (early 1990s) despite having excellent foglights (they were Ring IIRC) I still had to slow down to a couple of mph because the fog was so thick I had difficuly seeing the end of the bonnet - that's one of the problems when the bonnet is long enough to park a mini on

I think the design / build quality of foglamps has deteriorated significantly - you used to be able to set the very flat beam so that it wouldn't blind oncoming traffic - the current Highway Code states that "You MUST switch them off when visibility improves to avoid dazzling other road users" which tells me that current foglight design is a pile of crap.

And why am I reading the current issue of the Highway Code....

Well it all started when I had my photo taken by this little yellow box

Another deviation from topic... in the 1960s there was another idea to make driving in fog a bit safer by reducing the glare from lluminating the fog or snow in front of you - variable brighness foglights. Only had the fitted to one car (1950 Morris Minor

) and only found they improved visibility on one occasion - driving through Woking in a blizzard - an improvement that was not worth the effort of designing and building the dimmer system.