Previous owner hacked harness...concealed headlight relay?

[Triplegreen500]

So, a previous owner of my '70 Charger decided they wanted Dixie horns, and tapped into the dash wiring to install their own horn relay / push button / wiring setup to power and activate them. The factory horns don't work, but that's another topic I'll deal with once I identify the wires they cut up. It's a small bundle above the parking brake pedal, factory taped into their own little "branch" of wires. There's a pair of heavy-gauge dark blue with white tracers, connected together with a factory ring terminal; there's a pair of light green (I assume - they look like hi-viz safety clothing so I don't think they're "yellow") that are cut and separated but may belong connected to each other; there's a black with red tracer; there's a dark blue with yellow tracer. The only thing I can find in the wiring harness diagram (I downloaded one from mymopar.com) with those specific color codes, looks like the concealed headlight relay...but my headlights work, my high beams work, and my doors work (although they SLAM shut, I need to try and address that - might just need new rubber bumpers).

My question - would all this stuff work, if the relay is missing? What is the relay's job? I know what a relay does - it uses a small voltage signal to trigger a larger-voltage circuit to keep a high current draw out of a switch or button - but if everything is working headlight-wise on my car and this relay is missing...is it redundant to something else?

I'll keep digging through diagrams (and going crosseyed) to find another bundle with this group of wire colors...but I really think this is the one.

 

[Nacho-RT74]

relay use to be used to replace or make the relief over the switch, for any of these reasons... change the polarity of the function to be triggered, reinforce the source from a device able to handle more load than the switch itself, or get a dual function ( i.e. the concelead headlight system )

On the horn for example the relay is triggered a ground signal coming from horn switch, which the relay takes to source the horns with a positive source ( not ground ), since horns itself are already grounded.

on the concelead headlights, it takes the trigger source from the headlights coming from switch ( green wire ) to send the signal to open. When the headlight signal is off, the relay changes the points postion internally to feed the wire to close the doors. On these relays the relay is allways normally closed in one or another position. Is more like a selector to feed one or other function when is being triggered or not. I can't recall the color functions on the headlight door motor, but I think both wires for close and open the doors are black, one with red trace and the other with yellow trace ??????? dunno. Blue wire is the RUN circuit, to make work the doors just with the RUN circuit as a power source.

Without a horn relay ( stock ) or concelead headlights system, neither of these will work without the correspondient relay.

The stock horn relay takes the horn switch signal from a black wire coming from steering column ( on turning switch assembly ), and gets a violet wire coming from fuse box on batt side. When, horn switch is activated closing the relay circuit, a positive signal is sent to the horns via a green wire with red traces.

 

[Nacho-RT74]

on a 70 BTW the headlights doors relay is mounted straight to the dash frame just right below the headlight switch. So if there is a relay mounted around brake pedal assembly, is not factory... here circled

The horn relay seems to be the one underneath the headlights door relay BTW

 

[Triplegreen500]

OK, the photo shows exactly the blue/white wires that I have, with exactly the splice/ring setup on the end. It confirms my suspicion that the light greens were connected the same way initially. If my back settles down (spasms since Saturday), I'm going to get that cluster out to chase no dash lights, and I'll figure out what's there and what's missing as far as horn and headlight relays, and try to get stuff hooked back up correctly. It looks like maybe I can undo two screws from the dash frame, and pull that assembly out....?

The PO's relay wasn't "mounted" by the parking brake pedal...it was hanging from the cut-up wiring bundle, just below the dash frame, in that spot. Looks like about 3" from where the factory setup is attached inside the dash.

Thank you!

 

[Nacho-RT74]

Headlight doors relay needs to be chassis grounded. Horn relay doesn't thought

 

[Triplegreen500]

OK so I managed to poke around a little last night.

The new relay that was wired in, was a replacement for the headlight relay. Without it, my headlights no longer work. They had simply tapped into its wiring as a ground source, for their goofy horn button (they'd bypassed all of the factory horn stuff for the dixie horns; looks like they pulled ground from here, and hot was wired right to the battery).

I'll be reinstalling the relay, and cleaning up the wiring in the process (it was ug-LEE, with about eight feet of excess wire knotted up and zip-tied under there!). The breaker is also gone - not sure how required that is, maybe I'll put a fuse inline, or pick up a replacement breaker...they had the relay wired directly to the power leads.

I found the horn relay and slid it out from behind the dash frame...and then my back spasmed. But I'll be checking voltages and stuff this weekend to chase down the horn not working. I know I have some wiring issues underhood - the harness going to the alternator has multiple cheesy 'repairs' to it that I need to address (cars don't use wire nuts!!), and it includes washer pump wiring, and the horn lead, as well as alternator field wires, oil pressure sender wire, voltage regulator, and resistor. I'll see how hateful it is to fix up...or maybe I'll just buy a replacement, it looks like the HU182B from YearOne is the one I need...

I tried rolling the dimmer switch all the way up to trigger the dome light...no dice. I guess I'll still be pulling the cluster, to bench-test the lights and the dimmer switch.

At least I'm not losing driving time! With all the salt and crap on the roads, she's garage-locked for the next few months at least!

 

[Don Frelier]

So the lesson here:
Don't name your kid Previous as they almost always turn out to be lousy mechanics.

 

[Triplegreen500]

Or electricians that use items like these....

...although I admit to having made (and used) breaker finders in the past...

But it feels like I'm digging into a project like this, the further I get into these harnesses:

 

[Don Frelier]

The old turd sifter design.
Looks like indoor wire, needs to be rated for a wet area.
No plummers putty to seal it up either.
Idiots. The inspector will never pass it like that.

 

[Triplegreen500]

Looks like just a vent stack to me...it'll smell funky, but shouldn't be getting wet

 

[Nacho-RT74]

If you got still stock headlights just remove that **** and clean all the underdash wiring as a first step. Stock incandescent/sealed beam ( not halogens ) headlights don't need any relay to work. Not even halogen, but just to save the switch from the extra load the halogens sucks, but it will still work without a relay.