SLEE headlight wiring harness install holy cow

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landcruiser3DP

landcruiser3DP

Joined
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i bought the SLEE headlight wiring harness and also the auxiliary shortly after i bought my truck years ago. i've started road tripping 180 miles out and 180 back - sometimes at night - and needed more light and installed the wiring harness for the headlights today.
thought to post pics and a quick explanation.
first impression on low beams was yes and first impression on high beams was holy cow.
 
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the harness comes with instructions and
the whole front bar here needs to come off but it's a bit of a pain and isn't explained.
so remove five screws at the front grill (2 top, 2 sides half way fine and one on the middle all the way at the bottom) and take that off. then like six large bolts at that cross member. then three bolts at that mechanism that locks the hood. there's like two big bolts at the front of the radiator. they go through a big kind of dumbbell shaped rubber grommet. i was missing the bolt on the passenger side so the grommet was just hanging and the radiator could move a bit on this side. i think i have a bolt here to fix that.
anyway once you get all that removed you need to pry two plastic pieces that held the grill - forward so you can slip that cross member past them and then up and out.
before you slip it out you need to pry those little clips inward that hold the lighting harness so they slip through the cross member. you can't remove the cross member with these in place and it's confusing as to why it's not coming out. it's these clips.
once the cross members is removed there is still something attached (i forget) so just let it hang.
at that point you can install the harness into the lens on the left side to see how it gets oriented. don't do the ground or hot wires now because you don't have it all organized yet.
then zip tie the cable to the original lighting harness.
then get the cross member back in.
now remove the overflow coolant jug. install the harness to n this side. secure the ground on this side. then zip tie the old connections to the new harness to get them out of the way.
on the drivers side you reuse the original connections by plugging them into the harness but on the passenger side they don't get reused so you have vestigial connectors on this side.
anyway when i take out the bulbs i am sure to set them somewhere on the left and right where they came out to make sure i don't mix anything up. the connectors are keyed to the bulbs with one and two slots so you can't really mix up the connectors.

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i slipped everything in front of the original wiring on the drivers to get it tidy and out of the way. there's a sheathed portion of the harness here but not much room. so this required slipping those relays behind here and it was really tight. if you think ahead you could slip the passenger side portion behind this first to avoid having to get the relays behind this.
i then secured the ground at that screw with the lighting ground that is forward of the battery box because it was too tight running it all the way to battery ground.
then i slipped the hot wires back past the batter box and the frame so that they could enter from the back and go through that hole in the battery box and then get secured at the positive pole. this way they don't lay over any of the negative wiring.
pics are out of order here but you can kind of see in the last pic where i slipped the harness up in front of the headlight and other cabling at the drivers side. i ran out of phone power but will take a pic of this area so its clearer.
really glad i bought this and it seems like it's going to make a big difference.
so big ups to Slee for the great part.

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here's that wiring at the driver's side headlight and the battery box. i just let the relays hang at the side of the battery box. seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth trying to mount them somewhere with the two relays and that little angle and the bolt and the bolt and nut scenario.

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lost one of the screws for the front grill in the grass so i need to take a magnet to this area tomorrow. blue painter's tape is how i remember something isn't finished.
here are some shots of high and low beams. not sure how much help these are but it's definitely a lot better. i may try to find a brick wall to see how well things are aimed.
for some reason the rear taillights are coming on now with the headlights or high beams. i don't recall these lighting up before...

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I've been thinking about doing this as well, but am on hold as they're currently out of stock. I was a little skeptical as to how much difference it would make, but it sounds like it was pretty noticeable. I mainly want brighter low beams, so was thinking I'd probably also upgrade the bulb by 5watts in conjunction with the new harness that can handle the addl current. You might consider that if the lows still aren't meeting your needs.
 
cts said:
I've been thinking about doing this as well, but am on hold as they're currently out of stock. I was a little skeptical as to how much difference it would make, but it sounds like it was pretty noticeable. I mainly want brighter low beams, so was thinking I'd probably also upgrade the bulb by 5watts in conjunction with the new harness that can handle the addl current. You might consider that if the lows still aren't meeting your needs.
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thanks a lot for that...
 
Wagner 9011’s from RockAuto used to be about $7 each pre-tariff if you are running the original housings. Lots of older threads on how to mod the bulb to fit. Night and day difference from the 9005/9006. I run these without the harness without issue.
 
77mustard40 said:
Wagner 9011’s from RockAuto used to be about $7 each pre-tariff if you are running the original housings. Lots of older threads on how to mod the bulb to fit. Night and day difference from the 9005/9006. I run these without the harness without issue.
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yeah so i had some interior LED's and i think they caused problems but i cant remember why i didn't do headlight LED. maybe i didn't want to modify or i didn't want to worry about extra heat.
so what do i have i have i have Halogen 9006 (low) and 9011 (high) and you are saying to put in 9011 LED in both locations?
also what were the 9005 and 9006 again please? i remember the numbers vaguely but cant recall what they are for?

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9005/9006 IIRC were the OEM stock bulbs. 9011's in both locations here with good results, probably 35% brighter than stock. Reuse the old rubber o-ring off the discarded 9006 over the top of the 9011 o-ring for a snugger fit in the light housing.
 
77mustard40 said:
9005/9006 IIRC were the OEM stock bulbs. 9011's in both locations here with good results, probably 35% brighter than stock. Reuse the old rubber o-ring off the discarded 9006 over the top of the 9011 o-ring for a snugger fit in the light housing.
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thanks man. so looks like i have 9011 in the high beam but 9006 in low beam so for better lighting i can put new 9011's in the low beam?
 
I didn’t notice that much difference with the Slee harness but it did make it much easier to wire in some AUX lights. HIR bulbs back in the day were a solid upgrade for more light. I’ve since gone to LED bulbs and couldn’t be happier. The cut off is better than OEM and at least 3x brighter. I no longer have the Slee harness. You can see the bulbs and photos if you click my build thread in sig line.
 
I use 9011 (Toshiba) and noticed the difference from stock. Tried the depos (un-modified) - hated them - no side throw of the light and was dangerous going around corners in slow speed narrow street neighborhoods. Would like to try the Slee harness with the 9011 bulbs but have been on the wait list for 3 years - never in stock. Probably not enough profit in it for them....but maybe if enough people tag them they'll get a batch made. @sleeoffroad

This is where i got the 9011's a good bulb, was stock in Lexus cars back in the day.
 
9011 bulbs are almost twice the lumen as the 9006 which is the factory low beam. They use more wattage but still within OEM spec which is why you don’t need relays and harneses for them.

For your high beams, just get a better 65w 9005. If you dump a 9011 in there it will scatter because the the lens and housing aren’t designed for a low beam bulb. A lower watt, lower lumen 9005 will outperform a 9011 in a high beam housing.

That’s about the best you can do without swapping to something completely different.
 
I installed the Slee harness years ago, along with the Aux light harness, never looked back, great upgrade. Did not upgrade my brights - they were already OK but better with the new harness. Upgraded my lows with just LED bulbs 2000lm bulbs, significant upgrade, but now time for somee 3000lm I think.
 
Montana Cruiser said:
Has anyone used this harness since Slee always seems to be sold out?

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Don’t order from CruiserParts.net. Plenty of info in the bad sellers section on them. I’ve used painless performance harness on two vehicles and have been impressed with the quality. However they are almost triple the price of Slee’s and don’t have the extra wiring for aux lights.
 
Mudder said:
Don’t order from CruiserParts.net. Plenty of info in the bad sellers section on them. I’ve used painless performance harness on two vehicles and have been impressed with the quality. However they are almost triple the price of Slee’s and don’t have the extra wiring for aux lights.
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Thank you for the heads up on CruiserParts.net. I will read up a bit. I have ordered from them twice in the last few months (small parts) and have not had any issues, maybe I just got lucky.

I just reached out via the website to ask Slee when their harness may be in stock again. Will report back if hear anything.
 
JoeCova said:
9011 bulbs are almost twice the lumen as the 9006 which is the factory low beam. They use more wattage but still within OEM spec which is why you don’t need relays and harneses for them.

For your high beams, just get a better 65w 9005. If you dump a 9011 in there it will scatter because the the lens and housing aren’t designed for a low beam bulb. A lower watt, lower lumen 9005 will outperform a 9011 in a high beam housing.

That’s about the best you can do without swapping to something completely different.
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Uhhhh. No. A lower watt 9005 will not outperform a 9011. Been there long time ago.
 
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