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Installing Ecodes on your 940 with foglights, step by step

Anyone got a link to the adjustment instructions?

--> CW adjustment
<-- CCW adjustment

Right headlight working left to right (outside to inside)

L/B-H/B
<-- Right Left -->

L/B-H/B
<-- Down Up -->

Fog
<-- Up Down -->


Left headlight working right to left (outside to inside)

L/B-H/B
<-- Left Right -->

L/B-H/B
<-- Down Up-->

Fog
<-- Up Down -->
 
Bumping an old thread to add a critical piece of information that I didn't spot skimming through it:

What are ecodes? American terminology for the type of headlights 740/940 cars got in Japan, Singapore and New Zealand, at least. And probably Europe, hence the E, I guess. Both of my 7/9 cars have these, and they are quite attractive. Far far more so than my US 740 from my 2009 road trip. I only figured this out when I image searched "US 940 volvo" and saw how ugly those lights are.

Why was I even looking at this thread? Searching for the colours of the fog/high beam wires:

White: High beam, top.
Red: Fog, bottom.

After replacing my stone damaged left light I had put the wires around the wrong way.

My fog switch or fuse or relay or some such is not happy, though. But that's a topic for another day.

Fred.
 
If there any questions about sourcing that 4-pole connector, here's some bits I found:


As of right now, still available from Penta for ~$2 new. To see what cars have the female connector in the junkyard just go to the "volvooemparts.com" link and look at the "What This Fits" page--it was used from 1975 through 1998.
 
Use this guide to install Ecodes on your 940 with foglights.

1. Who this guide is for

You will find this guide useful if you've got a set of Ecodes with fog lights that you just want to put into your car and get going. If you are going to run high-power bulbs with relays or some other non-standard setup, this guide is not for you.

2. What you will need
  • A 940 with fog lights integrated into the headlight assembly
  • A pair of Ecode assemblies with corner lights
  • Appropriate connectors (keep reading)
  • Basic soldering supplies (soldering iron/gun, heat-shrink tubing, electrical tape, rosin-core solder)
  • Wire strippers
  • 2x H4 bulbs (I used 55/60W ones from Susquehanna Motorsports)
  • 4x H3 bulbs for fog lights/driving lights
  • 1-2 hours of time

I found it very helpful to have an alldatadiy.com subscription for my car. It's only $20 and may prove worth it if you need to look at wiring diagrams, etc.

The proper connector for the Ecode housing is identical to the radio suppression/electric fan relay connector on 740s and 940s equipped with them. The easiest way to get them is to find a suitable car or two in the junkyard, remove the connector from the relay, and clip out the connector, leaving a generous pigtail.

3. Wiring

Before doing any work on your car, disconnect the negative battery terminal and place it in a Ziploc bag (or similar) so that it cannot ground out on anything in the engine bay.

Step 1: Remove the main headlight bulb and foglight bulb from their housings. Disconnect each bulb from its connector, and set them aside in case you need them again for whatever reason.

Step 2: The main 9003 bulb uses a large black plastic connector. To remove it, simply pull it away from the wire; it should snap off. Clip the foglight connector from the black-and-white and solid black wires leading to it. Remove the soft rubber boot from the headlight branch of the wiring harness.

Step 3: At the end of each wire for the headlight bulb, there will be connectors for the old 9003 style bulbs. Clip each one off its respective wire and discard.

Step 4: Remove the old headlights from the car. There should be five bolts/nuts: two in the fender, two inside the grille that hold an air guide on, and a nut connected to a stud on the core support. Be careful with the nut, as it may have rusted to the stud and will break it upon removal. To remove the corner light and gain access to the fender bolts, push in the white plastic retaining tab on the turn signal and pull the turn signal housing out. Remove the turn signal bulb socket from the housing if you haven't already.

Step 5: The wires for headlight power are as follows, relative to standing at the rear of the car and looking forward:

LEFT HIGH BEAMS: Blue/white
LEFT LOW BEAMS: Solid green
RIGHT HIGH BEAMS: Red/white
RIGHT LOW BEAMS: Green/white
GROUND (both sides): Solid black

Foglight power on both sides is black/white.

Pinout for the connector on the Ecode housing is as follows and is identical on both sides of the car. H = High beam power, L = Low beam, F = Fogs, G = Ground.

CUEXP.jpg


31KhJ.jpg


Using a wire stripper, remove a length of insulation from both the headlight wire you're attempting to splice and the wire leading to the corresponding pin on the connector. Use the "Butt Solder" technique as demonstrated here: http://www.mmxpress.com/technical/connections.htm, with the stipulation that you should place a length of heat-shrink tubing on one of the wires before soldering them together.

Perform this step for each wire to be spliced, until each connector has been spliced into the wiring harness. You may want to wrap the wires in electrical tape at this point.

Step 6: Install the H4 and H3 bulbs into your Ecode housings. Replace any protective covers removed in this process.

Step 7: Install the new Ecode housings and connect them using your newly spliced connector.

Step 8: Test high beams/driving lamps, low beams, and foglights. If they all come on as they should, you are finished.

Step 9: Reinstall your turn signal bulb into the top of the Ecode corner lamp housing.

That's it!

Wiring diagram, for reference:

g0WBl.png


Post if you have any suggestions/corrections.
I installed mine today on my 1991 740 which I converted before from the single light to dual fog 940 setup. I don't see if im supposed to do anything with the foglight ground wire, but I followed these instructions and everything works except the foglighrs don't come on with thr switch, and my high beam indicator light is on when the headlights are on. It gets brighter when I turn the high beams on though. I assume this has to do with the ground for the foglights being left behind. Should I splice the foglught ground into the main headlight ground? I'm feeling a bit lost.
Update: I had the pinout wrong and assumed the connector was right side up in the picture. I tested each one and found the proper wiring. Everything looks good now
 
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I installed mine today on my 1991 740 which I converted before from the single light to dual fog 940 setup. I don't see if im supposed to do anything with the foglight ground wire, but I followed these instructions and everything works except the foglighrs don't come on with thr switch, and my high beam indicator light is on when the headlights are on. It gets brighter when I turn the high beams on though. I assume this has to do with the ground for the foglights being left behind. Should I splice the foglught ground into the main headlight ground? I'm feeling a bit lost.
Update: I had the pinout wrong and assumed the connector was right side up in the picture. I tested each one and found the proper wiring. Everything looks good now
I did mine today. I had similar questions regarding the fog light ground wire. The write up doesn't explicitly mention anything unfortunately.

I spliced both the fog ground and headlight ground to the ground pin on the 4 pin connector that goes into the e-codes.

Highs/lows and fogs work, but the fog lights are very dim.
Any ideas?
 
I did mine today. I had similar questions regarding the fog light ground wire. The write up doesn't explicitly mention anything unfortunately.

I spliced both the fog ground and headlight ground to the ground pin on the 4 pin connector that goes into the e-codes.

Highs/lows and fogs work, but the fog lights are very dim.
Any ideas?
Does your high beam light stay on on the cluster? I bet you have some wires mixed up and you're grounding through something else. Can you send a picture of your connector setup?

Also for what it's worth the original foglight ground was unnecessary for me after I wired everything up correctly.
 
Does your high beam light stay on on the cluster?
No, its working as intended.
I bet you have some wires mixed up and you're grounding through something else. Can you send a picture of your connector setup?

Maybe, but I checked and checked and checked as I did it. I'll take some pics in the morning when the sun is back up.

What did you do end up doing with the fog light ground?
 
No, its working as intended.


Maybe, but I checked and checked and checked as I did it. I'll take some pics in the morning when the sun is back up.

What did you do end up doing with the fog light ground?
I just covered the end and taped it off. Pretty sure it just goes to the fender ground, I might use it for some under bumper foglights at some point.

I personally got a little bit confused by the pictures in the thread and ended up having my wires wrong but the lights still working, just very dim and grounded totally wrong. Almost certain that's what you're dealing with.

Also, where did you get your headlight setup? SCP/Volvonest sells a kit but there seems to be some kind of manufacturing defect from TYC that causes them to aim way too low. I had to get another set from Classic Volvo Restoration (also TYC, but worked right), but im not sure if ill be able to return the SCP set. I've torn them apart and I can't figure out why they're aiming low
 
Im guessing they might only need fog power, and are grounded within the internal circuitry inside the e-codes.
They are probably getting grounded when they shouldn't be if that's the case.
I'll try clipping the fog ground and see if they brighten up a little.

They are OEM, I got them from @89-240gl+t
 
Im guessing they might only need fog power, and are grounded within the internal circuitry inside the e-codes.
They are probably getting grounded when they shouldn't be if that's the case.
I'll try clipping the fog ground and see if they brighten up a little.

They are OEM, I got them from @89-240gl+t
They only need the main headlight bulb ground for everything. I can show you how they're wired internally on my aftermarket set if you'd like, its really quite simple. They're easy to disassemble too.

I don't think getting grounded when they shouldn't be would cause dim bulbs in most cases.
 
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I'll poke around some more tomorrow, weather permitting. I appreciate your input thank you. Hold off on taking your car apart for me :lol: I appreciate the offer, confirmation that they are grounded internally and knowing what you did with the fog ground helps a lot.

Heres the picture I took today :-P

rcvYquu.jpeg
 
I'll poke around some more tomorrow, weather permitting. I appreciate your input thank you. Hold off on taking your car apart for me :lol: I appreciate the offer, confirmation that they are grounded internally and knowing what you did with the fog ground helps a lot.

Heres the picture I took today :-P

rcvYquu.jpeg
Lol its all good, it's a second defective set that I have that I've been opening up and stuff. Those look great on your car! Also I'm curious, where did you get the sockets for the corners?
 
Okay well then maybe crack em open lol
Thank you I am very happy with them.
The sockets were the same, I just plugged the original into the top socket of the new corner lens.
I don't really like that solution, I am hoping to work out
2 bulbs on each side eventually.
The OEM set I got came with sockets and plugs for each corner bulb.
 
I went through a similar situation with 240 e codes, it took 3 aftermarket sets to make 1 decent set. They kept showing up broken, and they wouldn't ship me parts, I just had to ship the whole set back and they'd repeat the process. I eventually just took parts off a set before sending it back in assumption the next set arrived with broken bucket adjusters.
It did.
 
Okay well then maybe crack em open lol
Thank you I am very happy with them.
The sockets were the same, I just plugged the original into the top socket of the new corner lens.
I don't really like that solution, I am hoping to work out
2 bulbs on each side eventually.
The OEM set I got came with sockets and plugs for each corner bulb.
2 bulbs is very easy, you can just splice into the ground wire for each side to create a new ground for the second socket, and then split the turn signal/running light wires so that the running light wire goes to the top bulb and the signal wire goes to the bottom bulb
I went through a similar situation with 240 e codes, it took 3 aftermarket sets to make 1 decent set. They kept showing up broken, and they wouldn't ship me parts, I just had to ship the whole set back and they'd repeat the process. I eventually just took parts off a set before sending it back in assumption the next set arrived with broken bucket adjusters.
It did.
I hate dealing with this shit, especially when I don't know if it's me who fucked up or the parts themselves are bad
 
Here's some pictures of the wiring setup. The brown wire is ground and it branches at the plug to run to each of the 3 bulb housings. Then you have the red for the fog and white for the high beams, and the main connector for the H4 bulb. It's that simple.
 
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