I got an
automatic headlight kit off of eBay. Here's where I'm at so far..
-The basic wiring was easy. I used the battery for power and ground. The module is weatherproof and made to be mounted under the hood. It connects to the lowbeam, highbeam, and parklamp wires. On our cars, the parklamps feed back into the dash lighting circuit, so the dash does light up when the lights come on like it should. The kit came with tap connectors, but I don't like those for any wires exposed to the elements. I used solder & electrical tape.
-Finding a safe switched power wire to use was a little trickier without having a wiring diagram. I ended up tapping into the fuse for the oxygen sensor heaters, which is in the under-hood fuse box. Admittedly tapping into fuses is a crappy way to get power, but it's a signal wire that carries practically no current, and I figured it was safer than risking splicing into the wrong wire and frying the computer. I tapped into the blade closest to the front of the car because it is protected by the fuse (if the wire shorts out, it'll blow the fuse).
-It has a signal wire to turn the headlights on with the windshield wipers. This was more tricky since our motors have a separate wire for each speed, so using the motor itself isn't an option. I found that the middle blade of the wiper relay (in the under-dash fuse box) always gets power when the wipers are on, regardless of speed. I tinned a wire (to prevent any loose strands from shorting stuff out), stuck it in the relay socket, and put the relay back in. Again not the ideal way, but acceptable for a signal wire and better than randomly probing wires since I don't have a full diagram. Make sure to tape/zip-tie the wire well out of the way of the pedals!
-The light sensor is about the size of half a drinking straw. It easily mounted in the grille and isn't very noticeable unless you know it's there.
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I still have to wire the foglights into the controller's low beam output so it turns them on as well.
Also, right now the highbeams don't work unless I manually turn on the headlights. This is because the switch has an orange/yellow wire going to a lowbeam relay and the highbeam switch. Since the module powers the lights directly, that wire never gets power, so the highbeam switch doesn't, either.
The solution will be to run a jumper wire from the relay's output wire (orange, I think) through a diode and into the orange/yellow wire. The diode is so that current can pass from the headlight controller into the relay coil/highbeam switch, but if you turn the switch on manually, the current will have to go thru the coil rather than directly to the headlights, since that'd burn it out.
All in all, it's not too bad of a project, although running a wire inside the car for the windshield wiper output was a pain.
Now I just need to install an autodimming/compass/temperature mirror and keyless entry, and my Contour will be gadgetized enough to make me happy.
