i bought a pair of the hella 500 lights last week and tried to hook them up this past weekend. well they arent turning on. i did everything by the directions, any ideas would be great.

 

Do you have a good solid ground? that would be the first thing i would look for.

 

do you just have wires hooked up to a switch or does the 500 series have the relay and stuff

Rocky

 

If you didn't ground each individual light to the chassis they won't come one, even if you hooked up the power and ground wires.

 

The Hella light setup is a relay setup. Make sure you have the correct wires going to the relay and going to the switch. Also like said above, the lights themselves have to be opened up and you have to run the ground wires to the inside of each lights and ground them somewhere. That diagram was on the front of the installation sheet.

 

yep relay is hooked up, i have three grounds hooked up and took lens off lights to hookup black wires and blue wires. i did read right off the installation sheet. i used the screws holding the fenders on, in the engine bay to ground all three wires. im getting some self tapping screws today to try to relocate the grounds. thanks for the input

 

oh and i grinded down the areas to expose bare metal. i grounded the wires to these areas but would it be a better idea to just ground them to the frame or is the fender fine?

 

make sure they have bulbs

 

Mine did the same thing... Bad fuse from the factory.
Check the fuse by wrapping it in tin foil and placing
it back in the fuse holder. If it works, buy a new fuse.

 

Mine worked fine when I hooked them up. I even used the oem fog power to turn on the relay for the Hellas. I did all my own wiring.

 

okay i had bought the hella 500's a little while ago and had the same problem as you seemingly. i kept blowing fuses and had no idea why. Finally after taking a voltmeter to the relay i figured out that the instructions are wrong. Two of the connections mentioned in the instructions should be switched. Im not sure wich ones at the moment but i think it is 87 and one other. Take a volt meter to it and find the two primary studs and the two secondary studs that should help.

 

This happened to me as well.
The wiring instructions are wrong.
I went and looked at the wiring on my dads truck (also has Hella 500s) and wired according to it and the lights came on fine.

 

ancient thread bump lulz

i'm having the same issue as the op

which connections need to be switched? all my fuses/grounds are good. help!!

 

i did not have that problem hooking mine up. i know several people who have tried hooking them up with running a wire for the relay to the highbeams or whatever source you choose and they couldnt figure out why the relay wont trigger

 

bump-

if anyone running the hella 500's off of a switch ONLY can take a snap shot of their relay and whats connected where it would be much appreciated!

 

this what your looking for?

 

Is the switch working? I got a bad one with mine lights.

 

I was just going to post that same diagram

 

yeah switch works, fuses are good grounds are where they should be

that diagram is 65574834923823 times better than hella's lol. if it stops raining i'll double check everything according to it

 

For those still having issues with the Hella's, I'd first suggest removing the lens to check the actual connections inside the housings to make sure they're plugged in & take note of the wire colors/connections.
The wire attached to the outer metal casing of the bulb should be the ground while the wire running inside to the element should be the positive wire. The lights will work either way, but I always like to wire them up correctly... the instructions that came with mine had the blue/black wires indicating wrong.

Next, check the bulbs... touch the wires to your battery to make sure they're working. One of my brand new Hella's had a burned out bulb.
Next, check the grounds on the lights & relay.
Next, check the fuse coming from the battery.
Next, double check the relay wiring with the one posted above or google fog lights relay & you'll get several diagrams.
If all that doesn't work... change relays and/or switches.

 

grounds were hit and miss- thanks fiddles for the fix!