Headlight thread
 

I am looking for some ideas of what some people are running out there for the 7" headlights on our trucks

I am thinking about the stock headlights from a new Jeep Wrangler or possibly even running a set of LED headlights like the company Trucklight offers. I just don't want to run the cheap plastic ones from eBay.

Re: Headlight thread
 

:ito:

Re: Headlight thread
 

subscribed

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I'm partial to Cibie E-codes. LEDs look promising but too expensive last time I looked.

Re: Headlight thread
 

How serious are you about headlights. I put the square ones in my 84 to replace the factory weak link lighting and I really like them. These are metal housings with aftermarket bulbs installed for lighting. You can go to a lot larger wattage with these.

http://www.visionxwholesale.com/7-ro...am-pro-07hilo/

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I post this every time a headlight thread pops up:

SilverStar headlights (regular old sealed beam), and a relay upgrade harness (I have the one from LMC but you can make your own). Phenomenal difference and very cost effective.

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I ALMOST bought those......until I realized they weren't sold in pairs. Lol!

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Do you have any pics of before and after?

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This is what I did, very happy with the results.

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Nope, I did this several years ago.

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X2 on the headlight harness, you won't regret it.

Re: Headlight thread
 

I recently went through this on my truck and spent a lot of time researching on the forum. Jeep lights, with modified pig tails. Cibies, hellas, Sylvania Ultras.

Spent several weeks of spare time, looking up lights on google to see lighting pattern.

I came across this thread:

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=436955

and ended up choosing this route for the upgrade in my '72. I had already installed a relay harness last year, so that part was done.

I ordered:

Hella 002395301 (About $80)

from jegs on ebay. Had the best price and knew they would ship fast. These do come with bulbs, but I wanted to use the Xenon bulbs used in that thread, so I picked up:

Hella H83140272 9003 HB2 High Performance Xenon Blue Halogen 12V 60/55W Pair (about $25)

When they arrived, I opened the headlight boxes first. There is a latch to hold the bulbs in place, that simply lifts up. I replaced the stock bulbs in each, with the Xenon bulbs, making sure not to touch the bulbs with fingers, as instructions recommend.

Installation was simple. In fact, for all the things I've done on my truck over the years, this was one of the simplest and hassle free installations I've done. I expect some sort of hassle, but there was none. They fit in the buckets with no modifications, no wiring hassle and the stock/factory plug fits right in.

Visibility difference was night and day. There is a definitive cut off that keeps the light focused below eye level. Lights are much closer to white when on, vs the typical yellowish tint.

Visibility is much clearer on low beam. When on high beams, I was blown away by how much farther and clearer I could see. High beams were important, because I drive early in the morning in an area where there are lots of wildlife, especially deer.

Hope that helps. There's a lot of options. After looking at them all, this seemed like the most cost effective way to get the best lighting solution without a lot of hassle. Probably the best money I've spent on my truck so far!

Re: Headlight thread
 

I totally agree, had them on my truck since 2005 and they worked perfect with lots of visibility. Did my own headlite relay harness from scratch with relays from a wrecked 90's Dodge Caravan.

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I had silverstars on my 84, thet are an improvement, but I want see the deer before he comes out, instead of after he hits my truck. Yes, get a quality wiring harness and tie it to the battery direct with the headlight switch controlling it. More voltage available to the lights.

http://innovativewiring.com/

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08 wrangler headlights

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Was curious if anyone used these. They look pretty cool


http://www.gelighting.com/LightingWe...-July-2013.pdf

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I've got halogen bulbs in mine, along with relays, and it will blind you.

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:agree:
I built my own harness.

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I have an old set of Hella lights that I've had since 1974. They have been on the shelf for decades so I'm looking forward to seeing how they work with the LMC relay harness I'm installing.

Tom

Re: Headlight thread
 

How was the install of those? Pretty straight forward or did you have to modify some stuff

I would guess that they should be straight forward because it's a 7" light

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I just did last night 7" glass face conversions, with 35w 4300k hid bi xenon kit, my cost with wholesale account was $60 including lenses and they give an 18 month warranty on the hids

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Subscribed/:chevy:

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Post a pic of the finished product and possibly a link where to get them.

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When I can afford it I'm going with retrofit.com They have the best of the best for HID lighting and they now offer the 7" kit. Very excited. Can't wait to get it.

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Ugh, here we go again....

HID, terrible light source for night driving, throws lots of light in a very unfocused way, that is a color temperature that tricks your eyes to think it's daylight, so it destroys your nighttime peripheral vision, has no focused distance throw, it's expensive, it's very disruptive to oncoming drivers, has slow startup times, and was only ever implemented in vehicles to reduce heat in small volume aerodynamic housings constructed primarily of thermal resin plastics. A stop gap technology that will be completely obsolete in new cars within 10 years or sooner, replaced by emerging LED technology.

LED, a ways away at this stage, just starting to become a high performance alternative for serious automotive lighting. Again addresses the small volume thermal plastic housings. Has some serious aiming and projection issues, very difficult to lens focus, also difficult to focus through a reflector, must be focused via arrays of narrow view chips specifically engineered for the housing. The most efficient light output color profiles have the same issues as HID and promote peripheral night blindness. Virtually all aftermarket headlight replacement units for vintage vehicles headlamp sizes are essentially the equivalent of strapping a couple tactical flashlights to the front of your vehicle. This probably won't change anytime soon, if ever, as it's a huge development effort to produce the packaging to make LEDs perform well, it would require a manufacture to sell tens of thousands of units to pay back the development and manufacturing cost of committing a production line to the custom chip packaging required. There is a reason why LED lighting on high end cars is an expensive option and in racing is limited to teams with huge budgets. If you are simply looking for lighting at the level of a Prius or Harley or an American Soccer Mom SUV (ie: tactical flashlights) or anything engineered to be good enough for a vehicle that will likely never exceed posted speeds at night, well I guess it's an option. Oh and LEDs produce a very specific color temperature spectrum, enough to perceive white or whitish but actually lacks huge chunks of the gradients of colors in-between. So if you look at a "White" LED light source through a prism it isn't a rainbow, it's a few narrow stripes. What's lost in human vision with this is the interaction between cones and rods in your retina, depth perception and contrast perception suffer because of this.

Halogen, still the predominant night racing light source, focuses very well by reflector or lens. Good compromise in nighttime color, limits peripheral night blindness, very good anti dazzle qualities when used in the proper reflector lens combination. Traditional halogen skews color temperature away from blue hues (what causes nighttime peripheral blindness) and allows both cones and rods in your retina to fully function at night, giving you good contrast perception, good depth perception, less particle bounce back and less glare and haze reflected off of objects. Overall far less long term eye strain in long distance and critical nighttime driving. Properly focused can project beams to great distances. The downside is they are hot, high wattage, and need a substantial reflector to dissipate heat. High output halogen needs air movement for cooling and reflectors need to be either constructed with substantial volumes or out of heat tolerant materials like metals and glass. Focus is done by lenses and reflectors and may not be as clean looking. Low beams that are used in often stopped or slow speed conditions that limit cooling airflow are typically limited in wattage.

The bottom line, HID is a waste of time that offers nothing to a vehicle with big round reflectors other than making you *feel* like it throws a lot of light because you see a bunch of light bouncing back at you off of stuff in the air and near field bright objects. LED has promise that may or may never translate to vintage aftermarket form factors, but regardless still suffers from a lot of human vision issues.

Re: Headlight thread
 

Sorry for the whole "HID" thing I know lots of people don't like them. But this company actually makes a kit with a projector in it so it gives a better than factory light cut off and focuses the light so it's not scattered everywhere.

I'm with ya on the morons who put HID'S in a reflector housing as they blind oncoming traffic and scatter light. HID'S are and only should be put in a housing that has a project or to focus the light and give it a good cut off.

By any means I didn't mean to disrespect anyone here.

Re: Headlight thread
 

Here's the kit 7" projection. Theretrofitsource.com


Attachment 1311012

Attachment 1311013

Attachment 1311014

This is the correct way to have HID'S in any vehicle.

Re: Headlight thread
 

Like I said though, at this stage HIDs have no place anywhere, it's the plasma TV of the automotive lighting world. It'll be completely obsolete and just a strange retro oddity in a few years. It was a heavily marketed product that's real purpose was to allow engineers to reduce headlight size and frontal area and make housings out of injection moulded low temperature composites. Even implimented correctly it has all sorts of issues, bad color, slow starting, no real focus point. Projectors were just a way to resolve the issues of what is really a poor automotive lighting source. HID is rapidly disappearing as an OEM lightsource, and I would be very surprised if it were available on any new car by the end of the decade.

Re: Headlight thread
 

I agree. I installed an HID conversion on my Jeep and the night driving on country roads is not as good. The light is not as focuses on the road as the halogens were. Switching to brights is a waste of time. They are nice and bright and can be seen from a long distance, but the light on the road not so great. They also take a few seconds to "warm up" and get to their full brightness.

Re: Headlight thread
 

Ok....I think we all get that:

HID = BAD
HALOGEN = GOOD

I think every light thread I have EVER read (on all different forums) has had good momentum until somebody chimes in about what a piece of junk the HID kits are. And how they blind people and they are slow to 'warm up'..... And after that, it seems it becomes 1 of 2 things. Either it's a thread that continues to bash on HID, or it becomes a debate between people that love them and people that hate them.

And to tell you the truth.....they all end THE SAME WAY...

LEAVING THE READERS THINKING THAT THESE PEOPLE HAVE MAJOR PROBLEMS BECAUSE THEY GET SO MAD OVER SOMEBODYS LIGHT CHOICE.

Here is a little lesson......you can post as much as you want about how HID kits suck and are dangerous and blah blah blah. But at the end of the day, if somebody likes the way they look, they are going to buy a set and install them.

I myself have never seen the "Cool-ness" factor behind them...but I firmly believe in the saying 'to each, his own'.

:flagw:

.....WITH THAT SAID......

Let's get back to the reason I started this thread....

Let's see and hear some more of what you guys did for your headlights. I mean because after all :wop:

Haha!
:chevy::gmc2:

Re: Headlight thread
 

Fair enough...

What's going on the front of my Jimmy Project, from outer to inner: Marchal ECode dip beams (5 3/4", 55W Philips H1), Marchal Main beams (5 3/4", 90W Philips H1), Marchal 909 Driving lamps (8", 90W Philips H1), Marchal 901 Pencil Beams (8", 90W Philips H1), and below Marchal 750 Amber lens Fog lamps (55W Philips H2). All NOS. Capable of a combined range of over 10,000 ft or about a mile and a half of focused light.

Attachment 1311338

...and a Photoshop render of what they'll look like on the truck:

Attachment 1311339

Re: Headlight thread
 

I'm in subscribed 'cause can't find it

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here's ya some 35.00 ones! and i might add they work just great, alot better than originals!!!


http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/g...pscc46cdcc.jpg

Re: Headlight thread
 

Anyone have a picture of their relay installation??? where and what?

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Hey Outlaw, those look great! where did you get the headlights? What are they? Details man!

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i was at a swap meet and the guy had alot of them, he didnt know anything about them at all, i thought 35.00 what the heck i'll try em, lol they work great, alot better than original, you do have to cut the bucket the oem headlights set in but no relays or anything.
ive got some more that i'm gonna put in that has the turnsignals in the bottoms of the headlights..they were 35.00 also, bought them from a vender at the frog frollies in evansville .

http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/g...ps27ac2774.jpg

Re: Headlight thread
 

Heres a link to the one I used in 2005 and it has worked great.


http://www.madelectrical.com/electri...adlights.shtml

Re: Headlight thread
 

I saw these at Auburn and thought that they were pretty nice for the price. Was probably the same vendor.

Tom

Re: Headlight thread
 

I went with the 35.00 tri-bar's as well.

Re: Headlight thread
 

Hmm, interesting comment about why HID was developed, becuase of wanting to package cooler light source in cheaper plastic housings.

I was a lighting engineer at a major OEM supplier for 17+ years. I designed multiple different HID headlamps that you probably see everyday. the reason for HID was for the incredible amount of light that comes out of them versus halogen. Plus they last longer because there's no filament to burn out.
Just for your information, it takes more space and higher temperature materials for HID due to the importance of an accurate reflector optical design. Cheap plastics warp and cause glare. You can't make a legal, good performing headlamp with cheap plastic reflectors. and you can't change the lens material due to impact resistance.

Now, that being said. Yes, LED is the new deal. HID's will phase out. Mostly due to the high cost and the difficulty packaging the HID bulbs. Plus, you block most of the light coming out of the bulb (actually called a burner) to avoid it hitting unwanted internal surfaces and causing illegal glare. THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T PUT THEM INTO REFLECTORS THEY WEREN'T DESIGNED FOR.

There's a couple of guys on my way to work that I meet on a regular basis who have illegal HID's in their vehicles. Looks stupid, probably isn't creating a lot of useful light and if there was ever a cop who understood how to check for DOT compliance they wouldn't have them.

That's my $.02