Really dumb headlamp question

[SeriesShorty]

I feel stupid asking this because it seems like it should be so easy. I bought some H6024 headlamps and a new wiring pigtail to wire into my new harness. The light and pigtail come with zero directions and it's not clear which wire is for hi, low, or ground.

The auto part guys have no clue. A few folks said green is ground. A few folks tell me that black is ground. And on my old wiring harness red was ground.

I've tried hooking to a battery using different configurations and it lights up no matter if I use the black or the green for the ground. :confused: Any suggestions before I crawl in a hole from embarassment for something that should have been a simple upgrade.

Thanks all,
J

[Nium]

J,
There is no ground when talking about DC. There is positive and negative. That said, one lead will be negative, probably the black one, the other two leads will be the positive. One lead will be attached to the "Hi" beam filament and the other to the "Low" beam filament. The negative of the two filaments will be attached to the common terminal, probably black :).

Take a look at GE's website and you'll see what I mean in their diagram of the filaments.
http://genet.gelighting.com/LightProducts/Dispatcher?REQUEST=PHOTOGALLERY&PRODUCTCODE=18525&SELECTED=Lamp%20Dimensional%20Drawing&COLOR=Yes

It doesn't matter how you hook them up to the battery the lamp will illuminate either way you just won't get HI/LOW unless you get the positives sorted correctly. Try looking closely at the terminals, with the wires removed, and maybe you can tell which the two filaments are common at. If you can't tell from that try looking through the lens to see if you can tell that way.

Are you using a relay? As high wattage lamps tend to be too much for the stock switches and wiring harness.

Cheers!