Yota.Jay

I own an 87 toyota with a cheap $100 battery. I'm looking for some light options for this thing as tonight was my first night driving it in the dark. Those thing are dim as crap. Any options?

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

Just what are you comparing it with??

While the sealed beam lights are not as bright as some of the expensive newer systems .

I would not call them dim.

If they are that bad perhaps you have some other type of problem.

As to options your only limited by how much you want to spend.

Truth be Told if it was not so much work I would swap back to all sealed beam lights To be able to change them without removing the battery and air filter housing.

Yota.Jay

Hey wyoming9 thanks for the reply. I installed new sealed beams yesterday. The old ones fell apart in my hands. There was a major difference in lighting. But now there is another problem. No lights in my dash. Before I installed headlights there were

Odin

Depending on how dirty or corroded the connections are simply cleaning and ensuring the power wire and all grounds are clean can make a big difference.


Since you've already replaced the lights I'd suggest you either make or purchase a headlight relay harness. It can make one heck of a difference.


After that there are plenty of headlight options available for this generation of truck and if I'm not mistaken there are threads on all of it.


European E Code housings with several different bulb wattage choices (The bulb AND HOUSING must fit securely and not be allowed to rattle from vibrations or lifespan will suffer- Stick with Narva or Osram bulbs for performance and longevity) HID, and LED's

RAD4Runner

YES, SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE and the H4 conversion is the clean, robust retrofit (depending on quality of the the harness).

Stock:
(See Schematic)

• Wires are thin (AWG 18/20?)
• Ground circuit goes from bulbs, to cabin, to dash to dimmer switch, back to engine compartment to ground inside passenger-side fender (exactly a convoluted path as 4Crawler describes it), causing a lot of resistance, a lot of voltage drops and reducing power that reaches the bulb.
• Dimmer (combo) stalk switch contacts carry high current (10 Amps on 60-watt high beam, 17 Amps on 100-watt high beams). This will shorten contact life.

Re Longevity: Sylvania admits that because of it's more extreme operation, its Silverstars. etc. may not last as long as dimmer bulbs.

I am considering Trucklites LED's myself when I have the budget. considering the frequency at which we change the halogens, and the better light of the LED, I think it is a feasible solution.

Yota.Jay

My new lights were free. And a noticeable difference from the stock like that broke.

I won't through any more money at it.

Odin

If you could see the difference side by side, with a relay harness Vs. without you would.
Honestly, it's a pretty dammed big difference for less than $20 off eBay. I'd give you a link to a fairly decent one but my computer is down and I'm reduced to using a pretty basic phone to post from.

Odin

I've been using NARVA 100W90 bulbs for close to two years now. I originally installed them in a Honda Civic, when I sold it I pulled them out.
Then they sat on a shelf in their boxes for a few years until I installed them in my Toyota. Osram and NARVA are the European divisions of Sylvania and Philips. Unless something has changed the European produced bulbs are higher quality. Things may have changed since I last checked all that out though.


I won't go anywhere near a bulb that has even a small blue ring on the bulb. All that blue tint does is block light and cause higher operating temperatures which decreases lifespan.
True my 100W90 bulbs are operating at higher temperatures than a 60W55 bulb but so far I'm getting good life out of them.

Odin

http://www.ebay.com/itm/For-Headlight-H4-9003-Ceramic-Controller-Harness-Relay-Wire-Adapter-Kit-/171559005371?hash=item27f1b6acbb&vxp=mtr

Yota.Jay

Am I hooking this up straight from battery with fuse? Need to figure out how to get it in line with the switch

Odin

It comes with an inline fuse on the power wire and all the wires have connectors on them. The wires are longer than what you'll need.


1. One power wire to battery.

2. Two ground wires.

3. Two ceramic headlight connectors that plug into your headlights.

4. One wire will have a male connector that will plug into one of the old headlight connectors.

The old headlight connectors still have power running to them and are still activated with the stock headlight switch because all you do to that system is unplug the connectors from the headlight. The wire from the new harness that plugs into one of the old headlight connectors uses a small amount of that power to trigger the relay system harness.


I think that's all.
One thing you may not like about it is that when you activate the high beams the indicator light will not be brightly illuminated like it is in stock form. Most people just overlook this and accept that one shortcoming because of the overall benefit.

Yota.Jay

How is it connected to the switch? I'd like to see a wiring diagram? Usually I understand it better by seeing it

Odin

If you can read the schematic and have the tools you might want to assemble your own with higher quality relays and thicker wire. It's not needed on 60w bulbs but 12 awg will greatly minimize voltage loss. I wouldn't go thinner than 14 awg. My guess is that you'll probably go over $20 bucks by the time you're done though.


Headlight relay system wiring schematics have been posted in this section plenty of times.
I'm pretty sure Rad4runner has posted one a few times and there's also one somewhere on the 4crawler site that he supplied a link to.

wentz912

If you are even considering it, do it. They are AWESOME. I swapped my 88 Runner to round style lights, and eventually converted to the TruckLites as well. Used to have a problem seeing while driving at night, especially with a wet road, or ambient light.

dropzone

iTrader: (6)

Truck Lite All the Way
This is a pic of a single light when I was doing my test fit

woodyth

iTrader: (1)

Do you think I will need this if I just ordered the replacement bulbs and lights from marlin crawler? I might just order it and install when it gets here to be safe? Will I notice a difference with just those bulbs?

Thanks
Woody

Odin

At only 60/55W- No. Will a headlight harness help produce even more light, yes.

"The unique blend of Xenon and Halogen that Vision X has come up with also increases the effective output of the light without having to raise the power rating. Therefore, a standard 55-watt low beam / 60-watt high beam design remains DOT-approved yet outputs 30% more light than OEM bulbs. Safely use your factory wiring harness yet receive an effective output of nearly 80 watts!"

Several years ago I had my first go around with fully colored blue bulbs and I found them lacking. The first set I tried were Pia bulbs that claimed the same 60/55w = 80w at the same power rating. No, no, and hell no. At first I was impressed and I found out that the blue tint for some reason actually helped me read road signs a little easier. As far as illuminating things further down the road because of increased power, no.
Think about it for a minute, by covering the bulb with any material you're actually blocking/reducing light output and raising the operating temperature which in turn also leads to a shorter lifespan. I found it also added to my eye fatigue/strain.
I went back to using regular 60/55w Osram bulbs and liked it better but kinda missed the effect it had on the road signs. Then I went to 100/90w Narva's and never looked back.








Yes, enjoy the blue or "hyperwhite" if that's what you like.
If you install those Vision X lenses and bulbs without installing a decent headlight harness I'm guessing you'll still get more light output from simply having fresh new bulbs because they get weaker as they get older. If you're not used to it the blue tinting or "Hyperwhite" effect will certainly give you the "wow" sensation for a while. The bulbs will still be held back a bit by the stock wiring harness.




Decent lenses with the same exact bulbs installed can also give the impression of increased light output from the bulbs because they eliminate some of the randomness of the light by offering a better, sharper focused beam pattern. There are a few cases of cheap lenses having a worse beam pattern than a standard sealed beam headlight. I don't know anything about Vision X.


From the factory our trucks headlight circuit is designed to save money and meet requirements, and I'm sure it's in that order.
Even if you were to add a new headlight relay harness to the stock OEM DOT approved sealed beam headlights you would have increased light output because of higher voltages delivered to the bulb.

Notice how the lumen output increases as the voltage goes up in both examples below.

Here's a graph from 4crawler that shows the light output vs voltage
http://www.4crawler.com/Images/LightOutput.gif

Figures from Daniel Stern lighting using a 9006 low beam bulb rated 1000 lumens at 12.8 Volts VS. different voltages:
10.5V : 510 lumens
11.0V : 597 lumens
11.5V : 695 lumens
12.0V : 803 lumens
12.5V : 923 lumens
12.8V : 1000 lumens ←Rated output voltage
13.0V : 1054 lumens
13.5V : 1198 lumens
14.0V : 1356 lumens ←Rated life voltage
14.5V : 1528 lumens


Here is more information about headlight relay harnesses http://www.headlightservices.com/TechnicalInfo.html
.

woodyth

iTrader: (1)

Thanks Odin for your response. I installed the headlights today and notice a difference. Will order the harness on Friday and get it coming. What exactly does the harness do? Just trying to understand.

The bulbs are clear, to the naked eye there is no coating.

Thanks again Odin.

Odin

I'm not sure I can explain it that accurately, my electrical knowledge isn't what it should be. I'll try to break it down to the best of my knowledge and make it easy enough for anyone to understand.


Lets start at square one with what makes a stock headlight circuit bad, or rather, inefficient.
90+ % of the problem is created by the bean counters who's job it is to try and save the company money. Thanks to them engineers were tasked with creating a single headlight circuit that is forced to do two things. Control the functions (on/off-high beam/low beam) and complete the circuit that supplies power to the headlights.





In the case of our older Toyota's things are a little different than normal because of the switched ground system. RAD4Runner seems to know a good bit about electronics so I'll quote him to make things easier-

I believe every connection in the flow path creates a small amount of voltage loss. Even if the connection is very good it would just take a very accurate meter to detect it. Every connection certainly has the potential for a reduction in voltage if the connection is loose, dirty, or corroded. That makes it a good idea to have as few interruptions in the line as possible.
On these trucks the thin wire they chose wasn't the best thing for feeding power hungry headlights either. It's been reported that the length of the wire in the headlight circuit is close to 15 ft. The longer the circuit wiring is the less it is able to maintain the same voltage from one end to the other. The same goes for the thickness of the wire, thinner can carry less.
It's said that on most vehicles the headlight/dimmer switch creates the biggest voltage loss in the flow path. It all adds up to being an unfavorable situation when you think about running aftermarket bulbs.




So what happens when you install an aftermarket headlight relay system?
Basically the relay system splits the headlight circuit into two instead of trying to do it all in one through the combination headlight/dimmer switch. The headlights are now supplied power by wires that totally bypass the restrictive headlight/dimmer switch and they use thicker wire for even less voltage loss. Both things add up to more power for your headlights.


1. Control Circuit- On/Off, Low beam/High beam- This is now all the original headlight circuit will be required to do.
The stock circuit will now only supply a small amount of power to the relays to have them function as the junction between the control switch (< same old stock headlight switch) and the power circuit >(new wiring from battery/alternator- through the relay- to the headlight).

2. Power Circuit- One function, supply power from the battery/alternator to the headlight.
There isn't much of anything here that's going to restrict the available power. Since the relay is an interruption in the power wire it does create a little resistance. Were talking about very small losses here, absolutely nothing like before.







On this site the dimmer switch seems to be a common source of trouble.
As RAD4Runner mentioned the
"Dimmer (combo) stalk switch contacts carry high current (10 Amps on 60-watt high beam, 17 Amps on 100-watt high beams). This will shorten contact life."
By switching to a relay harness you might actually be killing two birds with one stone, Getting brighter headlights AND helping the headlight/dimmer switch be more reliable because of the reduced current ran through it.



Here's a video of a Jeep owner (they have the same issue) that had good condition factory wiring and just added a headlight harness with his DOT sealed beams. As you can see he got a little brighter, higher intensity lights. The big thing is if you plan on adding higher wattage bulbs it's something you need to upgrade.
I'm not saying that anyone will get the same results. It partly depends on what shape your current system is in, wire degradation, corroded connections etc. If your truck is older and there hasn't been much done to it in that department odds are you'll get a sizable gain, especially when higher wattage bulbs are installed.

Fast forward to 18:11


Here's more video of the same guy only this time he upgraded to Hella lenses and Sylvania Silverstar bulbs which are still a lower wattage bulb.

Fast forward to 12:32

Odin

That's strange, I thought you were getting the Vision X High Performance (DOT) lens and bulb that they show on Marlin Crawler. I even looked on the manufacturers site, all the X Vision bulbs look like they have a blue coating on them. I wonder if they changed them or you got a different bulb?

Look on the back of the bulb for who made it and the power rating. If it has a part number look that up to find out what the actual wattage is.