Headlight, driving lights.

[SirRobyn0]

@77 K20 Thanks for the beam pattern diagrams and you experiences.

 

[Turbo4whl]

Some history: Wanting to add fogs to my 1974 GMC I added a set of Lucas clear fog lights. When new they were very good, so good that driving in the 1970's, oncoming traffic thought I was running high beams.

Moving forward to my 1982 GMC I first wanted to improve the headlights. Available then were Cibie Z-beams. Close to being DOT approved at the time, as they were a sealed globe with H4 bulbs. I was able to get them through PA's current safety inspection. I then added Cibie yellow fogs in the blank panel under the headlights. Not as bright as the clear fogs on the '74, but noone high beaming me when I had them on.

Running the '82 many years the stone hits on the headlight, and also the fogs I needed to replace them.
Cibies no longer available, I replaced the headlights and fogs with Hella. Those headlights also a Z-beam style pattern like @77 K20 posted.

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Hella's ^

Moving forward, currently running my GM800, I added round Piaa 510 ion crystal fogs that fit the round holes in my custom bumper. The light emitted is yellow, but not from a colored glass. When they are off they look clear. When on, the light passing through the ion gas and looses very little. These are the smallest light Piaa offers, but I believe, the best fogs I have ever seen!

The Piaa's are above you budget posted, but worth every penny to me.

 

[Ellie Niner]

@SirRobyn0 Yup. I misinterpreted a bit (maybe because I'm the one needing mid beams) I think your planned Hella conversion and relays will give you more light where you want it. Do be careful with the fog lights... like 77 K20 said, you can overdo the foreground illumination so that it screws with your ability to see far enough ahead once you're above 25-30mph. I do find a fog beam pattern useful for twisty roads at lower speeds, and trying to see what I'm just about to run over when navigating off road, then kick them back off again once I get moving faster.

 

[SirRobyn0]

@Turbo4whl Thanks for the info and time line. I have no doubt Piaa lights are great but out of the budget right now. I really apricate the info. And @Ellie Niner I can see your point and @77 K20 point about to much foreground illumination. Makes total sense. If I decide to get fogs, the H3 bulbs seem to come in 3 flavors readily available 35W, 55W, and 100W, with 55 seeming to be standard, so if it's to bright close in I'd think I could drop down to the 35W to make it sort of work better with the headlights. (correct me if that's wrong). We do get a fair bit of fog in the valley, and rain, and there is one slow twisting road that I have to drive once a week and that will be in the dark until spring time.

It would be cool if we could touch on fogs for a moment then. I think the hella 550 fog would be the flavor of choice for me, if I decide to get them white vs amber would be the question? Seems to me from what I've read amber works best in heavy rain and fog. White is probably not quite as good in rain and fog, but if more versatile as in would work better to illuminate close up on a slow twisting road. The amber 550's achieve the color though an amber refractor rather with clear glass, if that matters. I think for my intended purpose clear would be the way to go and if I change my mind, I could always put amber colored H3s in, though I'm sure there would be some light loose though the colored bulb, I really doubt I'd want to do that though.

 

[Ellie Niner]

The yellow vs white thing mostly comes down to personal preference. I tend to like the yellow ones when driving in sea poup fog or heavy snow... and there are a few benefits to using yellow light in those conditions... but now that I'm in the desert, where just about everything is some shade of grey or brown with a few bits of greenery here and there, I find it a bit harder to make out the roadway with yellow light... because it makes the green stuff appear black or brown too. So your take on the subject is pretty much the same as mine.

FWIW- the specific color of these fog lights is called "selective yellow", and it filters out blue, indigo, and violet light... which is only about 12% of light produced by a typical incandescent source. Here's something to read if you want to go really deep on the subject. I think a set of those Hella 550 fog lights in whichever flavor you decide on, with 55 watt bulbs would be a good choice.

 

[SirRobyn0]

Thanks again everyone for your input. I've got the LMC relay kit already ordered. I'll see what I can get for pricing for the conversion buckets and the fogs at work. Conversion buckets will be first priority and if I can do well enough on price I'll get the fogs too, since the PO wired the truck for aux lights it would be nice to have them in working order. I'll let ya'll know what all I get coming and then what I think after installation.

 

[Grumpy]

I will start off with a Caveat Emptor for everyone.

Until recently I performed and was licensed for Government Safety Inspections on everything except Motorcycles, Boats and Aircraft. Several years ago, I was sent a Safety Bulletin regarding headlamps and false "DOT" designations. Not only were many lenses marked with the "DOT" logo, thus delineating they were approved for highway use, many bulbs were as well. This has led to many difficulties in certifying vehicles AND vehicles with ill-designed illumination patterns. While I prefer made in USA (or Canada) products as a personal view, I highly recommend against offshore lenses simply for the inconsistent quality and patterns - stick with the stuff your cousin or neighbor made and the choice is wiser.

There are bulbs that are brighter when you are holding them in your hand, yet they fail to project any real light beyond fifteen feet.

There are also bulbs which will produce enough energy, the siding on your house will start to get soft and begin to melt - when the truck is parked twenty feet away and it is -16F (the driving lights I had for a very brief time.)

There some quality LED lamps available that will produce a good beam and are still courteous enough for oncoming traffic when dimmed. I recommend spending at least $40 each for a bulb, as the cheaper ones have serious quality issues.

I personally do not recommend Xenon bulbs, as they tend to make noise in all but perfect weather conditions and their propensity to flicker.

If you wish to have high-powered driving lights, consult your local laws regarding their operation. Some jurisdictions insist all driving lamps be wired such that they only function when the high beam lights are on and go out when switching to low beam - for fog lamps, they only function when on low beam. This requires wiring them in with a relay (or two) and an extra fuse.

When installing higher-powered lamps, you need to calculate how much draw they will require and wire in accordingly. Sometimes, a 20/40 relay will not have enough capacity and a 70 Amp relay may be the way to go (these are available from Hella.) A quality relay is critical, do NOT accept a $3 relay anywhere in your vehicle - wiring fires only happen when you have parked your vehicle for the night, or you are out of cell range.

 

[Ellie Niner]

I will start off with a Caveat Emptor for everyone.

Until recently I performed and was licensed for Government Safety Inspections on everything except Motorcycles, Boats and Aircraft. Several years ago, I was sent a Safety Bulletin regarding headlamps and false "DOT" designations. Not only were many lenses marked with the "DOT" logo, thus delineating they were approved for highway use, many bulbs were as well. This has led to many difficulties in certifying vehicles AND vehicles with ill-designed illumination patterns. While I prefer made in USA (or Canada) products as a personal view, I highly recommend against offshore lenses simply for the inconsistent quality and patterns - stick with the stuff your cousin or neighbor made and the choice is wiser.

There are bulbs that are brighter when you are holding them in your hand, yet they fail to project any real light beyond fifteen feet.

There are also bulbs which will produce enough energy, the siding on your house will start to get soft and begin to melt - when the truck is parked twenty feet away and it is -16F (the driving lights I had for a very brief time.)

There some quality LED lamps available that will produce a good beam and are still courteous enough for oncoming traffic when dimmed. I recommend spending at least $40 each for a bulb, as the cheaper ones have serious quality issues.

I personally do not recommend Xenon bulbs, as they tend to make noise in all but perfect weather conditions and their propensity to flicker.

If you wish to have high-powered driving lights, consult your local laws regarding their operation. Some jurisdictions insist all driving lamps be wired such that they only function when the high beam lights are on and go out when switching to low beam - for fog lamps, they only function when on low beam. This requires wiring them in with a relay (or two) and an extra fuse.

When installing higher-powered lamps, you need to calculate how much draw they will require and wire in accordingly. Sometimes, a 20/40 relay will not have enough capacity and a 70 Amp relay may be the way to go (these are available from Hella.) A quality relay is critical, do NOT accept a $3 relay anywhere in your vehicle - wiring fires only happen when you have parked your vehicle for the night, or you are out of cell range.

Excellent information! My only qualifier is that we're not quite there with LED's intended to replace halogen bulbs in forward lighting (headlamps). We've gotten to the point where there are *some* products that are able to make a compliant beam pattern in *some* headlamps, but there isn't a surefire way to validate that without having access to specialized tools such as an integrating sphere and goniophotometer. The products are getting better, and we'll likely be seeing more valid LED replacements going forward, but it's still not going to be a situation where you'll be able to swap in a certain LED bulb into every application and have it work correctly. How this all plays out remains to be seen.

As far as HID (xenon) bulbs... those should only go into headlamps that are specifically designed for them. I spent a lot of time and money when I was younger and dumber (HID bulbs and ballasts used to be stupidly expensive) trying to engineer a set of HID low and high beams that functioned properly in a set of headlights designed for halogen bulbs, and failed miserably. Someone who knew a lot more than I did at the time told me exactly why it wouldn't work... and he was right.

There are definitely some options for other exterior lighting functions, though you still have to have a decent grasp on how a certain bulb will perform with the optics of the lamp they're going in. These days, I just stick with what's tried and proven to work. Old school is still cool.

And yea. I second your thoughts on replacing the cheap relays straight away... have never used one (my cheap ass has always had a hoard of decent components I've salvaged from somewhere), so I didn't give it much thought. Glad you brought it up.

 

[SirRobyn0]

Thanks for all the info guys. Well I ordered 2 hella buckets, they'll come with hella 60 / 55W bulbs so I'll run those at least at first. In the more distant past I've run the Sylvania Silverstar bulbs, but abysmal life expectancy with that bulb, I've been running the Phillips Xtreme vision in most of my rigs and I'd say they are ok, bulb life is better than the silverstars for sure and vision seems better than basic. I think, since the buckets are hella, if I'm not happy with the bulbs I might order a different flavor from them.

I've also got 550 fogs coming. I opted for the clear lens again with the thought that I can always install amber H3 bulbs if I want to try amber. Hella also makes a film to put on the lens to make them amber. I'm sure any of that stuff costs some light output, but since I've never really had fog lights I wanted to flexibility to try either.

Ordered today I should see the buckets and bulbs tomorrow, and the fogs on Wednesday. Less than $200 for all that and I feel like that's all within budget.

No idea when the relay kit from LMC will arrive though.

 

[SirRobyn0]

Delayed.... I won't see my buckets until Wednesday or Thursday now. It's really not a big deal, but I'm looking forward to the seeing the improvement.

 

[SirRobyn0]

@Ellie Niner @77 K20 and everyone else that's interested. Took delivery of the headlight conversions, Hella H4 +50 bulbs (which are suppose to produce slightly brighter whiter light) and the 550 fog lights. Before I get to the install, I really don't have much time after work because I need to get to the farm each night to do a few things and check in before going home. So this afternoon, the sales guy at the shop has a doc apt. late day so I told him he did not need to come back which would have been fine, but one of the customers who is suppose to be picking up his car calls at 5 minutes to close saying he's stuck in traffic and will be about 15 minutes late. I told him to call and I'd unlock the door when he got there. Of course he's got about 100 questions about the work done so I spent about 15 minutes with him, in the time I'd planned to be putting in my lights.

So I got both the conversion buckets installed and plugged in and turned on the lights and one of them won't light. Long story short one of the bulbs is a defect. Figured I could change it out through the back and no, the rubber boot for the light gets somewhat trapped in the headlight bucket. Which really is a good thing as it'll stay in place, but also meant I had to pull the light out to swap the bulb, and I did both sides because I did not want to be running mismatched bulbs. I did a quick wall comparison at one point with one of the sealed beams and one hella, initially I was not impressed. It did seem a little brighter but not that much. The shop was partially lit at that point, so I could not see the full beam pattern mostly just the hot spot and obviously I had to much light in the shop for it to be really a fair check as my drive home would prove. By this time it's nearly an hour past close and I need to get going so I did a quick height only aim, I could see they were both pointing off to the right a bit, but I didn't have a good reference point setup for that adjustment and did not have the time to set that up, so I'll have to finish the alignment tomorrow.

So locked up and went home. Well let me tell you, I immediately noticed that I could see my headlights when driving under the street lights, not brightly, but I could see my lights. Previously my lights would have been lost, under the street lights. Next part of the drive is a divided country highway, which eventually becomes non-divided. Again I could see my lights on the pavement even with oncoming traffic. Then onto the regular country roads. Because of flooding I have to take a route I don't drive often and it's twisty and hilly. I could see the corners so much better, it's really so much better than the sealed beams and that's with the aim off to the right more than they should be. The amount of light is much better, and the beam pattern is much better too. At one point during the install I wondered if I'd be happy with them and ya one drive home in the dark, and I very happy with them, worth every penny. Can't wait to test them in heavy rain.

I'm actually wondering how much I'll use the fog lights now, because the beam pattern on the headlights is so much better now. I haven't put the fogs on yet, and I will since the truck is wired and has holes in the bumper for them. I suppose the true test for the fogs will be the first time we have have heavy rain or fog in the valley.

Sorry did not have time to take pics, but most certainly will at least after the fogs are on. Thanks again for all the help and advice guys the hella conversion is wow it's just so much better!

 

[77 K20]

And you should like the headlights more after your wiring harness is installed. I can't remember what the voltage drop was to my headlights- but it was a lot. Getting "real" battery voltage makes a difference. And at least with my truck on long highway drives my headlight switch area used to get hot. With the wiring harness hardly any current goes thru that headlight switch- and so the area stays cool now.

The fog lights might still be a very nice addition. Where were you going to mount them? (Typically lower is better). In really bad fog or blizzards at night I have found turning off the headlights and just using parking lots and fog lights was the only way I could see to get home. But I've only had to do this a few times in my life.

 

[SirRobyn0]

And you should like the headlights more after your wiring harness is installed. I can't remember what the voltage drop was to my headlights- but it was a lot. Getting "real" battery voltage makes a difference. And at least with my truck on long highway drives my headlight switch area used to get hot. With the wiring harness hardly any current goes thru that headlight switch- and so the area stays cool now.

The fog lights might still be a very nice addition. Where were you going to mount them? (Typically lower is better). In really bad fog or blizzards at night I have found turning off the headlights and just using parking lots and fog lights was the only way I could see to get home. But I've only had to do this a few times in my life.

Yes that's right. I have no idea when the harness will arrive. I have not checked the voltage drop, but I know it's there in some form. I should do that just to see before and after. Yes, my headlight switch area will get pretty warm too. Beside knowing that there is voltage drop to other thing I like about the relay kit is taking to load off the headlight which should make it last longer, and I've headlight wiring at the switch as well as at the dimmer burner up from the load. I almost lost my Cadillac to a dimmer, melting wiring and nearly seting the carpet on fire.

As mentioned before we do get heavy rain from time to time and the valley likes to get foggy, sometimes pretty thick. We don't get snow often but I do have to drive the pass from time to time so there will be opportunity. Heck maybe I'll like them so much I'll be putting them on all my other rigs.... mounting. If I was doing it from scratch I'd cut the air dam under the bumper and mount them to the bottom of the bumper. But the current lights are mounted to the top of the bumper so that's where these will be going since the holes are there. If I like them, but find the location to be to high I can always change it. But for now I'm putting them where the holes already are.

 

[Ellie Niner]

@SirRobyn0 Glad to hear you're seeing some improvement. After making sure your aim is as dead nuts as you can get it, I think err... almost know you'll see a big improvement after installing relays... incandescent/halogen bulb output drops rapidly with lower voltage, and stock wiring is pretty gimpy. Without knowing exactly what kind of drop you're seeing, I'ma guess you'll get at least 30-40% more punch after correcting that, and probably more. It will make the light appear a bit whiter, too, and not as dingy and brown.

Phillips Extreme Vision are one of the better bulb choices out there. The Sylvania Silverstars are pretty typical of bulbs with blue tinted envelopes... the blue tint takes away quite a bit of output, so they drive the filaments harder to make up for that, and bulb life takes a big hit. Once you bring the operating voltage up, they will burn out even faster. Stock or high luminance bulbs with no tint won't last as long, either, but the life won't be impacted as much as with blue bulbs.

Top of bumper should be a decent height for frog lights. I've only mounted a set of aircraft landing lights down low, and they created a lot of shadows on undulating roads, and also seemed to be magnets for rock holes. It's good that you're seeing well enough to not need to use auxiliary lamps to try to fill in for sucky low beams... you probably won't use fog lights all that much, but they are handy to have for extra sh¡tty driving conditions.

 

[SirRobyn0]

@SirRobyn0 Glad to hear you're seeing some improvement. After making sure your aim is as dead nuts as you can get it, I think err... almost know you'll see a big improvement after installing relays... incandescent/halogen bulb output drops rapidly with lower voltage, and stock wiring is pretty gimpy. Without knowing exactly what kind of drop you're seeing, I'ma guess you'll get at least 30-40% more punch after correcting that, and probably more. It will make the light appear a bit whiter, too, and not as dingy and brown.

Phillips Extreme Vision are one of the better bulb choices out there. The Sylvania Silverstars are pretty typical of bulbs with blue tinted envelopes... the blue tint takes away quite a bit of output, so they drive the filaments harder to make up for that, and bulb life takes a big hit. Once you bring the operating voltage up, they will burn out even faster. Stock or high luminance bulbs with no tint won't last as long, either, but the life won't be impacted as much as with blue bulbs.

Top of bumper should be a decent height for frog lights. I've only mounted a set of aircraft landing lights down low, and they created a lot of shadows on undulating roads, and also seemed to be magnets for rock holes. It's good that you're seeing well enough to not need to use auxiliary lamps to try to fill in for sucky low beams... you probably won't use fog lights all that much, but they are handy to have for extra sh¡tty driving conditions.

Thanks for that. If your interested a short story....

Back in the 2000's I had an 1988 Oldsmobile Delta 88. At the time I did some work for band out of the bay area in California, and I live where I still live in Western Wa. So I don't fly, so I'd drive down. I was younger so I'd often leave after work and drive though the night, the Olds didn't have very good headlights so I ran Silverstars in it. And let me tell you they did improve the headlights. The problem was that the bulbs were expensive and the live was terrible. It was so bad I'd carry a spare pack with me. When that car was gone I stopped using them, when I found the Phillips extreme vision. I haven't done any sort of comparison from the silverstars to the Xvision, but I've had the Xvisions in the most of my other rigs and they last for years and years and give very good light. The only thing I don't like is there are no local retailers so I have to order them online.