1996 with no fog lights…

[BobSacamano]

I am preparing to put in oem style fog lights on my ‘96. Got a bezel with switch and hunting for bravkets. Anyway, as I’m looking at the wiring diagram I see the Lt Blue/Black wire starts as a 22 ga at the switch, then becomes a 20 ga before the relay. Why? At what point do you make the change? I’m sure these are silly questions, but my electrical knowledge is limited.

 

[franklin2]

A wild guess is it's something to do with the plug they used at the different locations. The pins in the connector C144 will accept a 20 gauge wire, but the pins in connector C240 will only accept 22 gauge wire. This is just a guess.

P.S. I see across the way they have a 18 gauge wire(tan org) going to C240 so who knows. It may be obvious when you lay eyes on it.

 

[BobSacamano]

Thank you so much for your reply. The problem is I’m gonna be wiring all this from scratch so i’m trying to be careful. There is a post about 10 years ago about someone doing the same thing I wanna do but the wire gauges were different from what I find in the diagrams.

 

[franklin2]

When in doubt, go larger with the wiring if it will fit. You will always be safe this way. Physically fitting will be your only problem with using larger wire.

 

[Curious Hound]

Personally, I would recommend that you use 18 gauge or larger for everything you do. I rarely use smaller than 16gauge. Those tiny wires are just miserable ways to save money.

The relay coil itself draws very little current and 20ga wire is fine for that. You fog lights draw more current and their part of the circuit should be larger wire. If they are LED lights, they will use less power than the OEM incandescent lights would have used. Wire size is proportional to the load or current flowing i. The circuit. Also, longer circuits sometimes require larger wire due to the resistance of the wire itself.

 

[BobSacamano]

Thanks y’all! Great information. I want to do what this fellow did but I wasn’t clear on some of it. If you have time, read his post and see if you agree.

96 OEM Fog light installation

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[Bgunner]

My guess is at the firewall bulkhead connector for the wire size change point.

There are a few reasons to do it here, One being the flexibility of the wires for under the dash and keep the thicker wires' durability under the hood. Next is the switches output wire for the relay only needs 1 connection between them and that is the firewall bulkhead connector.