4 Headlight front end Recommendation

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Shawn Wheeler

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4 Headlight front end Recommendation

Truck – 84 K10

4 headlight grill

My old truck is pretty close to all original. I don’t drive at night often so I am not sure I need wicked bright lights and I know I don’t want a new challenge wiring them up.

My question – Four light. Two are high beams and two are low. When I try to look up headlights, I only see one type. Are all four lights really the same?
Any recommendations for where to buy?

And finally, is there a way to get brighter lights without changing the wiring?
 

TotalyHucked

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I've already been down this road with my '85. LMC truck makes a relay harness that helps make the stock halogens brighter, but it's really just a bandaid for terrible lights. The fix is modern LED replacements. There are 3 different ways I'd recommend going about it, all of these keep the factory fluted lens look but have much better optics and light output over old halogen technology:

- Holley makes their "Retrobright" lights. These are awesome and have insane light output and beam patterns. They also have a harness that allows for all 4 lights to be both low and high beam. However, they are PROUD of their stuff, it's expensive as hell. I would eventually like to try these cuz everyone I've talked to love them, but I'll be buying one light at a time lol.

- Hella H4 conversion. Europe got much better lighting than we ever got (still do), so a popular conversion is to order the Hella E-code lights (E for Europe) and put some quality H4 LED bulbs in them. My buddy did this in his '76 with the round headlights and being behind him is like being behind a modern Mercedes. It's insane. The Hella's can be found many places online, along with the bulbs.

- RMS Lighting conversion kit. This is the route I took (around $275 for the whole kit for 4 lights and harness IIRC). Very happy for the price point. They're not as great as the Holley's, don't know how they compare to the square Hella's. But dude's name is Hector and he's super friendly and easy to work with. I contacted him through Facebook but here's his website:

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fast 99

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One thing to watch out for is wattage requirement and how they compare to OEM bulbs. Higher wattage may require relay, The OEM circuit breaker in the switch could overload. Most LED's have a lower demand.

I tried both LED and HID in a Maxima. HID was far superior. This was a few years ago. There might be better options today.
 

saltdog

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I just used these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0896XXLQF/
$149 Price was decent enough and they have SAE and DOT approvals too. Set up was pretty easy using stock harness and they are super bright. To install I needed to change plug pinout configuration to match stock. It was easy with a small screwdriver. High and low are different.
Just passed VA inspection too- inspector asked about them as they were so well aimed.
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saltdog

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Following on my May 2024 post regarding the Auxbeam 4x6 LED Headlights (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0896XXLQF/). After a 1300 mile road test, I can definitively say DONT buy these lights They are a waste of money. Even after perfect aiming, Low beam light pattern is terrible to the point of being dangerous as it will not cover the side of road ditches. Even with well aimed aux fog lights too, I could not see the edges as well as with the old sealed beams-almost hit a deer, though high beams were fine. After more research, I'm swapping out for Holley Retrobrights (https://www.morimotohid.com/Sealed-Beam-Holley-RetroBright-LED-Headlights-4x6_3?quantity=1) as they have a really decent beam pattern, look more stock, have a lower color temp (5700K), and turned out to be cheaper than the JW Speaker (https://www.jwspeaker.com/products/heated-4x6-led-headlights-model-8800-evolution-2/) or the Morimoto (https://www.morimotohid.com/morimoto-sealed4-4x6-led-housing?quantity=1). Definitely way more money than I'd prefer to spend, but being able to see better at night is worth it to me. I was tempted by the RMS which look super decent, but did not want the very high color temps and could not find good info on the beam pattern.
 
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