Is there a way to safely put the '98-'01 Sport dual headlight assembly in a '96 Ram without having the truck's wiring harness burn up?

I could really use more lights than the stock lights and fog lights.

 

The harness is not going to burn up. They do not pull much more current if any than your 96 lights. You will have to do a little modification to your light harness to accommodate the separate lo and hi beams.

 

I found a harness online that plugged into the factory harness and then it split into the 2 plugs.

The reason I ask is that my brother had an '01 that he put the Sport lights in and wound up having to replace the whole wiring harness because it melted.

 

The only thing I can think of that there was a short when he installed his. The only time I have heard of anyone having any other problems with replacing headlights is when they add HID's without an upgraded wiring harness.

 

use the wires that power the headlights to control relays, wire power direct from the battery, thru the relays, to power the headlights.

or, check out some of the neat stuff on ebay......

 

That is a good recommendation HeyYou has, but I have to ask why that would be necessary going to another stock headlight from another year? Do they pull that much more current that the stock 96's?

 

Even switching to a controlled relay system to power the headlights right from the battery would be a noticeable improvement.

Do the sport headlights pull that much more power? I doubt it. There is a relay in the PDC for headlights, but, so far as I can determine, on my truck, even though it IS a sport..... it doesn't DO anything....... haven't tested that to far, just going by the 01 wiring diagrams, so, real possibility I am wrong on that.

 

I don't think it would be a problem using the stock wiring harness but your method would alleviate any chance of having that type of problem and is probably the preferred method.

 

FYI, the 1998 Sports were the same as 1994-1997 Sports. The first year to get the "special" dual bulb setup was 1999.

You may also have to carve some holes in some metal, IIRC, to get to all the bulbs from the engine compartment.

 

I found a harness and with a set of sport head lights & corner lights on eBay for $169 + shipping.

I will order that and see how it goes.