Head Light Question

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70 FJ40

70 FJ40

10 Year 15 Year
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Threads
85
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1,060
Location
Eastern, OR
A few months back when we first got our 100 series I was very impressed with the headlights on bright mode. However I was a little disappointed with them on dim. I just thought they would need a little adjustment. It looks like The entire headlight assembly gets adjusted at the same time however. Is that correct? When I line it up in front of my garage the brights are lined up well but the driver side dim setting seems to be shining way too far down or it is very obscured. Is this normal?
 
It's normal. Someone here suggested PIA driving lights when I complained about the dismal low beams. When I installed them the low beams were a lot better but still seemed dim. High beams caused small animals to burst into flames :)


I had to get a state vehicle inspection in December and I asked them to aim the headlights (no charge... that's kind of rare I think. Gotta like small town dealers. Chevy dealer at that). Wow... I'm a PIA lifer now. Low beams are bright and easy to see. Oncoming traffic isn't blinded. And now large animals burst into flames in the high beams :)

(note: some exaggeration may be present in this post)
 
OP, not sure if you're driving an LX or LC...

Mine's an LX. I noted low beams were relatively useless when I got the truck. The BEST money I've spent on her, so far, was for HID low beams. 6000K H1 versions with 50 watt ballasts using the oem harness to trigger a relay for the HID's.

I got mine from DDM Tuning, but there are a ton of other vendors. Installing the HID's quickly pointed out the crappyness of the high beams...Issue now is the high beam's are reflectors and HID's need projectors.

hth

Steve
 
Thanks guys.

Mike6158, Did you also need to install a relay for the PIAA lights? I would need to buy 2 bulbs per side in order to get low and high beams correct? I don't necessarily need blinding lights so I like the idea of just changing bulbs and possibly redirecting the lights a little. Hopefully that will get me what I'm looking for. Where did you buy your PIAAs?

hankinid, Was the HID upgrade expensive or difficult?
 
70 FJ40 said:
Thanks guys.

Mike6158, Did you also need to install a relay for the PIAA lights? I would need to buy 2 bulbs per side in order to get low and high beams correct? I don't necessarily need blinding lights so I like the idea of just changing bulbs and possibly redirecting the lights a little. Hopefully that will get me what I'm looking for. Where did you buy your PIAAs?

hankinid, Was the HID upgrade expensive or difficult?
Click to expand...
About $80 iirc a year and a half ago. They're less expensive now.

Connections were at the one- :banana: level, though I've got a ton of experience installing electrical stuff in flying machines. OCD had me spend a lot of time playing with keeping the wiring well clamped and terminated, and keeping components away from areas prone to moisture. I'd say 3 hours total in the garage.

Passenger side is easy and takes the longer leg of the HID relay harness. Driver's side is a bit of a :worms:. Battery needs to be removed to do a decent job. I gaffer-taped the harness coming from the relay to the neck of the windshield washer bottle, tied the passenger side harness to the oem wiring running across the radiator and then up to the ballast which sits next to the parking light housing. Power to the relay is direct to the battery...ring terminals on the DCM relay harness are Asian crap and were replaced. Cable from the battery runs along the outside of the battery under the headlamp support sheet metal and up to the relay.

No room on driver's side to mount the ballast next to the parking light housing...I stuck mine below the battery with heavy duty Velcro patches from Walmart.

Total installation time was around 3-4 hours.

There might be a 2-year old thread in the FAQ section which explains it in more depth. It also has a bunch of before/after pics.

hth

Steve
 
Thanks Steve. I will check out the FAQ.
 
SR.GRINGO said:
Research "HIR" bulbs.

I have these in my 80....your best bet unless you go HID with retrofitted projectors.

http://www.amazon.com/PHILIPS-STOCK-COLOR-HEADLIGHT-HALOGEN/dp/B00P8FPULG/ref=sr_1_2?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1420607230&sr=1-2&keywords=hir headlights
Click to expand...
That bulb needs a very minor modification to fit existing the existing high beam socket...info in the FAQ section and all over the web.

The low beam HIR installation, as I posted above, made it obvious how bad the oem low beams were both in brightness and range...with the HID's, the oem high beams don't toss much more light, and the extra distance with the high beams is little, except on a very dark
road.

I'm unsure whether to go the projector route on the high beams or add some driving lights...probably projectors will be the choice as I'm not finding much in the way of auxiliary mounts for an LX with a stock front bumper.

Steve
 
I have read recently on this forum where folks have retrofitted HID projectors to use with the newer LED bulbs. I spent about 20 minutes trying to find out how much money that would cost and where to buy a conversion specific to the 100 series but it wasn't clear what exactly was needed and how much work was involved. I'll continue the search again.

For now I have the H1R bulbs and they are an improvement for sure, I don't have any complaints to be honest.
 
So after much research here on mud(thanks everyone) I have purchased the HIR 9011 bulbs and put them in the low beam sockets. I know this is the high beam bulb but I wanted to get as much light as I could. If I get flashed by oncoming traffic in the next few weeks then I will move them to the high beam sockets and get the 9012 HIR for the low beams. IF not then I will get another set of 9011s and put those in the high beams as well. I suppose there are brighter options out there but the HIRs are WAY!!!! better then it was and definitely good enough for me. I'm impressed.
 
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