I had been wanting to improve the stock sealed beam lighting on my Carry so I bought a set of eBay H6024 headlights that use an H4 bulb. Turned out the sealed beam halogens made better light than the cheap eBay lights. What I really wanted to do was install some bi-xenon hid projectors in the eBay housings, but due to the lack of depth, most projectors would require cutting the back of the housings so the projectors can stick out of the back, but then there is limited space behind the headlights in my truck. There was one projector small enough to fit inside a 7" round headlight, but they are no longer available so I had to look for an alternative. I came across some projectors that were made for retrofitting motorcycles and decided to give them a try because the dimensions indicated they would fit inside the eBay housings. Here are some pics of the eBay housing and the hid projector: I baked the headlight in an old toaster oven at 250F for 10 minutes to soften the adhesive so I could pry the glass lens off. The projector fit perfectly inside the housing without needing to cut or grind the housing. Actually, it sat so far back into the bulb socket that I couldn't lock it down with the supplied washer so I had to use a big fender washer that sits at the very back of the housing to lock down the projector. Here is a side-by-side shot of the retrofitted headlight and eBay headlight as is: This is what it looks like on the truck: This was one of the easiest headlight mods I've ever done. The projectors have a nice sharp cutoff and were easily aligned and aimed. The cutoff shield inside the projector drops down for high beams and is activated by a solenoid below the cutoff shield. The light output is a tremendous improvement over the halogen sealed beams. The light pattern is nice and wide and illuminates much further. These projectors come with blue angel eyes and red demon eyes. The red demon eyes are bit too bright and red for my liking and I don't want to give the cops a reason to pull me over so I will not be hooking them up. The blue angel eyes are white enough that I will hook them up to a relay and switch. I have a few more lighting mods I'm working on and will update as I complete them.
That's pretty dam wicked. 4 hand claps..I've been boosting up my alt power to install a set of lights that I have sitting in the basement, brand new in the box.As soon as I can figure out how to do it with out looking all...you know...
Ha ha, thanks. Where on your truck are you planning to install those lights? I'm modding some off-road lights so I can mount them on the rack behind the cab, not that I need them--just to turn them on when I'm tearing up my lawn and to shine them in the direction of the house across the street to annoy the residents. I've got to shop around for a piece of 3"x3" angle iron because the rack on the truck is only about an inch thick.
Nice job! I would love to do that to my HiJet but it doesn't have clear lenses. I think the best source of info on doing proper HID retrofits is www.HIDplanet.com . A great forum with lots of info. And the associated vendor is HERE. Again, lots of good reviews and information. I have NOT bought anything from them yet but they seem to be very reliable and have been around now for several years. I'm working on a lighting project right now utilizing several (as in 4) Hella 500s. I'm a bit worried that I'm asking too much of the alternator. Waiting on a power distribution block. Maybe get to installing the relays today.
Damn! I was looking for projectors and hoping to be the first to get them in. They look very good. I found some 7" replacement ones on amazon, but there isn't enough info in the info section for me to be 100% confident that I will be buying something that will plug right in.
The big 7" LEDs? Those thing are expensive, how hard was the installation? Did you have to do much modding?
Thanks! Yeah, fluted lenses and projectors don't work well together. Do you have room for fog lights? I think I need more light and I'm tossing around a few ideas on how to install some Ford Fusion projectors fogs on the truck. I replaced the stock fogs on my 2006 Dodge Magnum with Ford Fusion projectors with an HID kit installed and it was quite an improvement over stock. It's funny, I also have four Hella 500s that I'm messing around with. Two are the 500 and the other two are 500FF. Are you thinking about converting them to HID? I figure the halogen bulbs run @ 55 watts vs. 35 watts for the HID so it should be less load on the truck's electrical. I'm also messing around with a pair of old Per-Lux 200T fog lights. I'll update this thread with my progress on those lights. Hidplanet.com is a great source for information. I put off retrofitting my 2006 Dodge Magnum headlights for a long time until I found that site and it gave me enough info/confidence to get it done. I used the Morimoto Mini H1 projectors and am very happy with the outcome. I've seen those H6024 projector headlights that take an H4 bulb and I didn't have any confidence that they would work very well base on my experience with aftermarket projector headlights. I'm sure they will plug right in, but the performance may leave you disappointed. If you can hold off on upgrading for a while, TRS may be getting some more Morimoto Matchbox bi-xenon H1 projectors. I will be switching over to the Matchbox projectors when/if they get them in because they take a more common H1 bulb vs. the proprietary bulb in my current projectors.
Actually, that's exactly what I have too. I was thinking of doing some 3000k H3 HID bulbs in the regular 500's. Since I'm offroad (and low speed) only, I'm not concerned too much about the less-than-optimal optics of putting a HID bulb in a halogen reflector. Also the yellower color might be good for snow plowing
I really like the 3000k because of the contrast it provides, it really does work well in fog and I'm sure it will with snow plowing too. I'll never be mistaken for an HID purist so I have no problems converting the Hellas to HID. By the way, have you seen the G4 ballasts? I bought 12 of them for about $10 each shipped so I can replace some 4-year-old ballasts and use them for the Carry. Here's a vid on how waterproof they are and I am really impressed with how quick the bulbs light up and hit full power. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-w997I2U4c I finally finished one of the Per-Lux 200T fogs tonight. These fogs have never been used, but they are old and built like tanks. They have a stainless body and glass lens, but they use a sealed beam halogen and there are metal louvers between the light and the lens. The first thing I needed to do was drill a hole in the back of the housing for the threaded part of the hid projector. The projector is held in place with a locking nut. The problem I ran into was how to protect the bulb from the elements. I needed to figure out a way to seal the back, yet allow access for changing bulbs in future and I decided to use two 1 1/2" rubber plumbing caps. As you can see from the above pic, the pvc pipe wall is going to be a bit thick to fit over the bulb holder. What I did was drill a hole in the middle of the pipe so I can feed the bulb wires through and use a dremel to grind the walls thinner to fit over the bulb holder. This should keep water out of the housing. And this is what the final product looks like. I removed the louvers by drilling out the spot welds. I'm really glad I was able to breathe new life into a set of old fog lights I almost threw away.
the led i installed were simple as changing a regular bulb i love them they plug right in the factory wiring harness too ill try to get some pic oh yeh got my cab lights installed thanx fupa for the idea
I'm curious. Were they H3 replacements and were they bright enough? Most things I'm reading implies that the plug in LED's are not bright enough for actual headlight use.
You guys are all doing nice jobs with the lighting. I have a set of orange fogs and the set of full size plow HI/Lows(with signal or park integral light), as posted above. It's the placement that I've been tossing around, something that doesn't look too bad. In other words, something that I can pull up to tim hortons, to get a coffee, and get a few wows, instead of a few laughs...ya know? I've got a few pics with the front slider and light representations in a few different spots. A second, third, or fourth opinion would be nice.
Generally, the lower the fogs the better. But if you're going to be plowing with them, they obviously need to be lighting up more than the back of the blade! Here's how mine turned out. The 3000k HIDs are retrofitted into the plain vanilla 500's on the sides. The 500FF's are stock in the middle. I used the HID kits from the link suggested by Rottyfan and they were a snap to install. Not really sure if they are significantly brighter than what the lights would have looked like with their stock H3 55w bulbs but I think the color contrast will be nice for plowing. They were inexpensive, easy to wire up and seem to work just fine. Eventually, I'll do a write up in my "intro" page.
Not to confuse you Acer, there will be no plow, we are talking about looks here. That's all. What will look good, and what won't... I ask again, help me out with the positioning guys...big set, small set, both sets... Or, none, just tell me what you think looks best... That's what will be done...
Sorry I missed that. In that case, I'd vote for the second from the right version; fogs down low, flood/driving lights up high.
Got some lights and tried to bake them and split them. First one worked, second one broke. Third one broke, fourth one broke. Yeah I had to get two more cause I broke one. Now I am looking for 7" glass without the parabolic back so I can just glue them together and get them in.
How do I wire these in to my truck? It looks plug and play for headlight but halos need power from some where. Where is that power coming from?
