My meter only has 10V 50V 250V and 500v settings, but I did use 18ga wire, which from what you are saying is probably way too small, but i think thats what came with it.

 

Yep, 18ga is WAY too small, even if you used a relay. 10-12 gauge is 'bout right for the high-current side of the relay. You'll need to set your meter at 50VDC. There will be no AC voltage in this exercise.

Make sure you're reading the right scale on the meter. Full-scale will be 50 volts, so ~14 volts will be about a third of the meter swing.

 

Your battery should not see below 9.6V during a load. If it does, your battery is failing a load test. One bad thing about buying a battery at walmart is they do not rotate their batteries, or recharge them. Look on the top of the battery, around the corners. Is their a code melted into the top of it? It should start with a letter (between A and M) fallowed by a number (0 through 9) and then some other combination of letters and numbers. This is your date code for the battery, which tells you when it was manufactured. Find that and tell me what it reads. And fyi..... That battery is a piece of crap. Did you get the factory recommended 65 series battery?? And more importantly, does that 65 series battery have the correct CCA's you need to operate your vehicle?

 

I think you guys are looking in the wrong place. 3 things I see wrong with this post.

1. The lights draw way to much power to be wired directly thru the switch. The switch is a resistance and probably gonna cause a problem sooner than later.
This is the first cause of your voltage issues.
Solve is to wire it correctly thru a relay.
2. Wire being used is to small, Resistance is gonna be to high. Again this is gonna become more of an issue sooner than later. 18 guage for the switch side of the relay is fine. and 10-12 for the power side. Solve, See #1.
3. How is your ground, If you don't have it grounded properly This is gonna cause additional resistance in the circuit.

You need to fix 1 and 2, Then do a voltage drop across the gound to determine if there is an additional resistance.

 

Right now my Hellas are wired thru the switch, yes, but it works right now. It'll eventually burn my switch out. The relay I had was bad. I ran mine thru 10 gauge wire. A bit over kill but it works. RamMan is totally right, be sure you have a good ground. I took and individually grounded each of mine. I took the ground wire and and hook it into my mounts. That gave me best light too.

 

I have both lights grounded a few inches away from the mounts, under two different bolts on that front cross member, im gonna go pick up a relay and some 10ga today and take care of the small wire, Ill let you guys know how that goes. thanks!

 

Good luck. Hopefully you'll get this resolved.

 

Update: Its all better now. I went to Radio Shack and bought a relay and a project box. Went to Walmart and picked up 12ga wire and a new Multimeter. Everything's all buttoned up now and the needle doesn't move off-center at all. I tested the battery at idle; 14V, with headlights 14V, and with Headlights and Driving Lights it dips by .5V for a few seconds, and Then evens back out at 14V. I took me a little while to figure out not to use the directions on the back of the relay box to hook it all up and its working great now. Thanks alot guys!

 

Doncha jus' love a happy ending. Yeah, I usually just use the meter to figure out the relay.

 

Im glad to know it all worked out for ya.