How To: Rewire Your Beetle Headlamps

[Audiomechanic]

Does you Beetle blow headlight bulbs every time you turn around? Does the wiring inside the headlight assembly look crispy and damaged? Do you NOT want to spend 50-60 bucks on new wiring harnesses (each) for your Beetle? Well, lookie here for your rewiring DIY!

WARNING: UNLESS YOU HAVE ELECTRONICS WIRING EXPERIENCE, SOLDERING EXPERIENCE OR ARE A VERY PATIENT PERSON WITH SMALL DELICATE THINGS (OR ALL OF THE ABOVE) THAN DO NOT CONTINUE!

Here are some tools that you will/might need to do this:


- Needle Nose plyars(a long and short pair would be helpful
- Wire strippers/cutters (or, like I prefer, a good pair of scissors)
- A small micro flat screw driver (like what comes in an eyeglass repair kit)
- A soldering iron
- Small guage solder with rosin core (helps the solder flow and bond with the wire/pins)
- Package of heat shrink of various diameters (couple bucks at Home Depot)
- about 3 to 4 feet of 16ga copper wire (speaker wire will likely work although multi-conductor wire from Home Depot would be better since it's color coded and the jackets are a bit tougher). If you go the multi-conductor route, get 4 conductor.
- Crimp on blade connectors of various sizes (the bulbs require larger connectors than the grounds)

In Total, the materials (minus the tools) shouldn't be more than 10-20 bucks and can be found at Home Depot, Lowes, Radio Shack and the like.

Ok, here we go. First, remove the headlight you're working with first and take off the back plate to access the bulbs and wiring.

Remove both bulbs and disconnect the wires from them:


Next, disconnect the ground wires from the low and high beam bulb seats:


Next, pop the wire connector out of the housing by pressing on the large tabs on either side (one of them is shown in front):


Here's your $65 part:


Next, we need to remove one of the wires from the connector without damaging it. if you look inside the connector, you'll see 6 small slots (3 above and 3 below the pins).


You use a small screw driver and insert it into the slots above and below the first wire you're working with (WORK WITH ONE WIRE AT A TIME INSTEAD OF REMOVING ALL 3) and press towards the pin in each slot. You may need to move the screw driver around. You are bending down a small tab that holds the pins in place:


Next, take a pair of needle nose plyars and GENTLY grab the pin and push it into the connector:


If the pin does not pop out of the back with reasonable force, then reinsert the screw driver into the slots and try to depress the tabs better. Then try again.

Here is the wire removed from the connector:


Next, open the small pieces of the pin that are "hugging" the wire at the back:


Then, bend the wire back and forth until it eventually breaks off of the pin:


Using a small flat head screw driver and a hammer, GENTLY tap the screw driver into the middle of the crimp so that you spread it apart a bit:


Once you've done this you'll have a small void in the crimp. This is what you will fill with solder to form a good connection:


Next, take a piece of new wire and cut it to length (make the new wires about 1 inch longer than the originals...two if in doubt). Then strip 1/4" off of the end and insert it into the pin with the bare wire laying in the gap you created in the crimp. Then fold the metal pieces at the back of the pin around the wire jacket so they "hug" the wire in place:


Now, here comes the fun part! SOLDERING!!! You want to evenly melt the solder into the fibers of the wire and get it underneath and into the gap and a little bit around the pin for a good, strong connection:


Next, take a piece of heat shrink, cut it to about 1.5" in length and slide it over the pin so that it covers just up to the end of the solder:


Heat it in place:


For the ground wire, you'll need to splice two wires together because the ground connects from one bulb seat, to the next, and then to the connector:


Slip on the crimp-on connector:


Then crimp in place:


Here's the ground wire completed and ready to be reinstalled into the plastic connector:


Before you insert any of the wires back in, look at the pin end. On either side, you see very small metal tabs. These are what you pushed down with the screwdriver to get the pins out. GENTLY lift them up:


Now reinsert the pin into the plastic connector. THEY ONLY GO ONE WAY SO IF YOU FEEL RESISTANCE, FLIP IT OVER AND TRY AGAIN. They should go in relatively easily.

After you insert the pin into the connector, go ahead and lightly tug on the wire to make sure it is securely seated back into the connector. If pops back out, lift the small tabs on the pin up a little more and reinsert the pin back into the connector.

Now, repeat this for the other two wires.

Once you have all the wires reinstalled into the connector, insert the bulbs back into the housing and then reinstall your wiring.

With the new connectors that attach to the low-beam bulb, since they have the wires that come straight out, instead of to the side like the factory one's, you need to bend the connector over so the back plate can fit back on:


Once done, plug 'er into the car and test the lights out!

Hope this helps someone!

[noR]

For Discussion on this How-to go to:

Rewire Your Beetle Headlamps (How-To) - Discussion thread <---click on title to go to link.