Wanted: DRL/fog lamp combo

[Locutus]

I think the bracket that Rob used is part of the original fog light.

[Mr Morlock]

a combo was always a silly idea. Separate functions easily achieved with different lamps- bear in mind 1. drls can be small 2. fog lamps always had to be optically correct and for most of us a useless lamp. OEMs had lot to answer for in adding fog lamps to cars and every second car has them on and achieving nothing- the Police do nothing. I never switch my fogs on any of my cars in "normal" conditions.

[drckarcher]

I think the bracket that Rob used is part of the original fog light.

Thanks, you are right. It turns out that there was a change in the way the fog lights are mounted around 2003. The later models have this additional bracket. I ordered a pair through the local Mazda dealer. I just hope they haven’t changed the front bumper mounting points too... we’ll see.


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[drckarcher]

a combo was always a silly idea. Separate functions easily achieved with different lamps- bear in mind 1. drls can be small 2. fog lamps always had to be optically correct and for most of us a useless lamp. OEMs had lot to answer for in adding fog lamps to cars and every second car has them on and achieving nothing- the Police do nothing. I never switch my fogs on any of my cars in "normal" conditions.

Not sure why it is silly to have both functions combined in one lamp. I have not found a daytime LED kit that looks as nice and has the same functionality as the Osrams.

Of course you don’t switch the fog light on in normal conditions...that’s not what they’re for. They make however a hell of a difference in fog- particularly at night.


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[drckarcher]

This is the page from the parts catalogue

[Hammer]

Just curious, how did you go with mounting the fog lights?

[drckarcher]

Just curious, how did you go with mounting the fog lights?

I’m still driving them around in the boot haven’t had time to install them. But it’s going to happen in the next 3 weeks. I’ll post it here!


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[drckarcher]

Finally I found time to install the lamps. It took me a good part of the day but it's all working and I didn't burn down the car.

The kit I bought is the OSRAM Ledfog 101 (https://www.osram.com/am/ecat/LEDriving ... P_1072187/)

They sell for over 470AUD but I found them on ebay for 270AUD, shipped from HongKong.
As described above in this thread I also needed the brackets and screws, they are genuine Mazda parts. (AUD75)

Additional bits you will need are more cable (see below), heat-shrink tubing, cable ties, and a multimeter and a soldering iron.

I didn't own a multimeter, so I had to buy one, Youtube has plenty instructional videos on how to use a multimeter in case you don't know. And I didn't... But hey, you learn something new every day...

First step is to remove the old fog lamps. This is easier with the wheel off. I started on the left. The wheel house cover is removed by removing 5 clips (red circles), one bolt (green) plus three screws (blue) on the bottom of the car.

wheelhousing1.JPG

wheelhousing2.JPG

The foglight is removed by undoing three screws (red circles)

foglightold.JPG

These screws are now used to fix the bracket.

fogbracket.JPG

The lamps then slide into the bracket and are fixed with three screws

This is the wiring diagram

wiring diagram.jpg

The cable harness is now fed across to the other side of the engine bay. I ran the cable in the top of the front bumper. In order to get it there, I had to undo the four top bolts holding the bumper and the top bolts of the headlights. This gave just enough space to feed the wire through. I did have to go over the headlight bracket though. No big deal.

On the right hand side, the wire is fed through into the engine bay slightly differently. From the control unit runs a harness the opposite direction to the right hand sided foglight. The idea is to plug it into the original foglight cable, however the plug doesn't fit. Have, more cutting, and soldering is required.

Now both lamp harnesses are plugged into the control unit.

The next challenge is to get power straight from the battery. Since the MX5 has the battery ion the boot, those cables have to be extended. I got 8 meters of 2-lead cables from Jaycar and used solder plus heat-shrink tubing to connect them. In order to feed the wires through the cabin, the driver side kick-board plate had to come off as well as the trim panel sitting in the front of the footwell.

In the firewall on the driver's side is a big grommet containing cables and the release cable for the hood (which runs separately) . I used a coat hanger and poked it through the grommet (from the engine bay towards the cabin), parallel to the release cable. I then increased the hole around the coat hanger with a knife and the soldering iron. In order to have a conduit for the cables, I sacrificed a colouring pen from my kids, cut the tip and the bottom off to have a stiff plastic tube. I slid the plastic tube over the coathanger (again from the engine bay). The medicos will know this as Seldinger technique) The pen was just long enough to be visible in the footwell.

Now the cables are fed through the pen-tube, the carpet on the door sill is lifted and the cables run alongside the sill to the back of the cabin. The seat belt tower trim can stay in place, the carpet can just be pulled out underneath there. The cables now run upwards behind the driver's seat.
After lifting the bottom corner of the rear deck carpet you can see a small opening, just under the rear deck metal cover.

Another coat hanger is fed through into the boot. It ends up in a void that can be seen once the boot trim is removed on the driver's side.

The three cables are now connected to the battery as shown in the installation diagram. The red cable has a fuse in line, which has to be close to the battery. Hence it has to be snipped off and re-attached on the extension wire in the boot.

Next task is to get switched power in the engine bay. This is found on the wiper motor. I ran the cable on top of the firewall over to the left hand side and hid it under the seal that sits on the firewall.

A wire each runs to the indicators on either side and one is connected to the right hand side parking light.

Finally the test, all is working YAY!

Now the cables are tidied up, wrapped with electrical tape and fixed to existing cables with cable ties. All trim panels go back in, wheel housing on, wheels on. voila!

I've taken plenty of pictures and I will try to add them to the post. Unfortunately the forum software kept playing up multiple times, so I thought I get the text sorted first.

All in all an achievable task for someone like me. Quite handy with all sorts of tools but never worked on car electrics. The instruction manual that comes with the lamps is super-clear - almost like an IKEA manual.

I hope this helps others.

[drckarcher]

Obviously there is a maximum of 5 pictures per post....

Left headlight with cable running over the top mount

mx5headlampleft.JPG

Right headlamp

mx5headlampright.JPG

This is the grommet on the driver's side of the firewall (seen from the engine bay) The white thing is the coat hanger

mx5grommet.JPG

This is the trim in the driver's footwell that needs to be removed.

mx5footwelltrim.JPG

The pen poking through into the driver's footwell with coat hanger still in place

mx5footwellconduit.JPG

[drckarcher]

The door sill alongside the driver's seat

mx5doorsill.JPG

The rear carpet behind the driver's seat pulled back

mx5rearcarpet.JPG

The coat hanger guided through the opening in to the boot

mx5coathangerrear.JPG

View from the boot with coat hanger coming through

mx5coathangerboot.JPG

The battery with connections finished (The fuse box is tucked behind the battery bracket)

mx5battery.JPG

[drckarcher]

https://youtu.be/-JDiAmbAx2w


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[Locutus]

Looks awesome. Well done!

[Hammer]

Nooooice.

[drckarcher]

Something interesting happened yesterday:

I turned the ignition off and locked the car. I noted that the DRLs remained on and after 20 seconds they started flashing fast.

After some troubleshooting I found out that the flashing would only stop when I pulled out and put back the fuse labelled ‘30A Blower’.

It turns out that the flashing described above only occurs when the aircon is on (a/c button pushed) AND the fan is set to zero.

A/C ‘off’ and fan to zero OR A/C ‘on’ and fan set to between 1 to 4 results in normal function, that is the lights go off with the ignition turned off.

Now who can explain this phenomenon to me?

I should add that for the installation, I took the ignition plus from the wiper motor for what it’s worth.





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