Dim headlights

It has a harness. So there are the high and low beam sticking out the hosting and it's grounded in the housing.

 

When I unplug one the other stays the same. It is a 12 volt system.

 

If you have a test light, alligator clip to a good ground on the engine and put the pointy end on the headlight housing. With the headlights on and the test light connected the test light should not light. If it does then you have a bad ground.

 

So I ended up putting on the relays and its a bit brighter but still a bit dim. The multimeter says it's at 11.5 volts which is pretty decent right?

 

Where are you measuring the 11.5 volts? Engine off or idling? Are all your contacts clean (prongs on headlight switch, dimmer switch, headlights, etc), crimps tight and preferably soldered? Did you test the grounds on the headlight housings as Walt suggested? Are all your basic grounds in good shape--battery to block/frame, body to chassis, engine to firewall--every ground should be connected to clean, shiny metal.

 

With the engine running you really shouldn't be lower than 13v most will run around 13.4-13.6volts.

 

With the engine running I was at 13.22 and the ground was at 0.05

 

If your showing any resistance on your ground its a short, plain and simple. It should show zero.

 

Yeah! I got it a bit brighter with the relays but it's not safe what's so ever

 

Have you gone through the progression that Howard suggests in post #7? This shouldn't be this difficult to figure out. Are you still using the original switches? One or both may be faulty, which Howard's test would indicate. Have you tried bypassing the switches yet, which has also been suggested?

 

As I stated earlier i wired it to the battery and it still was dim

 

You wired BOTH positive and negative light terminals direct to the battery pos and neg?

Really? Then you have a bad battery, or a bad headlight bulb. Swap out one of them and try again. End of story.

Seems to me the situation may actually be more complex, and a full systematic progressive diagnosis needs doing, as said.

 

If you went straight to the battery then you either have a bad headlight, bad battery, or you have only driven cars newer than 1995. They don't make headlights like they used to, they make them better. You might have too high of expectations for a 40+ year old vehicle.

 

I miswired headlights a long while back. I reversed the ground and low beam terminals. The lights were extremely dim. The high beams were like low beams, and the low beams just plain sucked.
This is how they should be wired, triple check it:

 

My trucks headlights are amazing and its 10 years old. My jeeps headlights are fine though. he has a nick in his wire, a poor ground, a bad switch or a faulty socket. replace all the wiring, socket, switches and headlight bulbs. Its a poor connection somewhere.

 

Maybe he's just not using halogen bulbs. Non halogen suck

 

Post #1 = "I bought new H4 aftermarket headlights"

Hard to imagine an H4 not being adequate.

 

Just an FYI