Hella 500FF Installed + PICS
 

Hello all
So I decided that because I live in the forest I need some extra light at night so that I don’t kill any Bambis or Thumpers whilst on my way home from work. I went with Hella’s new 500FF kit purchased off autoanything.com (poor service, slow shipping, avoid) and the Toyota fog lamp switch purchase from rallylights.com (great service, fast shipping).
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Now as a precursor to this thread I installed these lights at a different time than when I took the pictures, so no pics of the holes in the bumper, so sorry.

The very first thing I did was to measure and find where I wanted to put my lights. I wanted to leave room for another set if I needed them so my lights are spaced 15.5 inches off center. I used a piece of cardboard wedged in-between the main headlamp and corner lamp to make a level plane to measure from as the bumper curves around a bit. My lights mounting holes are 1.5 inches from the grill which is fine because the lights bracket is at the extreme rear of the lamp housing. After checking it twice I used a center punch to mark my holes and started drilling. Starting with an 1/8th inch bit and moving up to the final diameter of 10mm or 13/32 I used 2cycle oil on the bits to keep them cool and from binding.
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With the holes drilled I mounted the brackets. I added a neoprene washer to the mix to help keep vibration down; you may also know that KC highlights have rubber mounts as well and I am emulating this with the 500s. I tightened the bolts from underneath using a 6’’ extension and 13mm long socket by hand until the nuts were tight and then attaching the ratchet through the gap in the plastic under bumper bit. Once tight I moved to electrical mode.
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First disconnect the battery negative (-) terminal. The kit comes with a relay and a switch; I have opted to use the Toyota switch which is way cleaner than the Hella switch provided. Run the black wire to the lights and the blue wire to ground, the red wire to battery and the yellow wire to the switch. The switch is wired from the top down yellow, green, blue. As you can see I have soldered and shrink wrapped all of my connections to make them last. The green wire needs to be taped into a 12v source; I chose the cig lighter so I can’t accidentally leave my new lights on, but you can hook them up to high beams, parking lamps, or anything that you want.

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After buttoning everything up and connecting the lights to the black wires all that was left to do was grounding. Each light, the relay and the switch all needed to be grounded. The lights were easy, as was the relays just make sure you strip the paint away to get a good connection because the lights won’t work if you don’t ground correctly. Also you will need to get your own ground line for the switch because the supplied one isn’t long enough.
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Once it’s all hooked up reconnect the battery and check to make sure the lights are working. Then button everything up and your good to go.
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Hope this helped someone out there.
Gary

Looking good!. I plan on getting a set of those soon.

Looks good man. Nice work. :great:

nice clean install i got the 700's my self id recommend some 100w bulbs

Looks great! I cant wait to hook up my 700s.

So if you switch to a 100w bulb, do you have to worry about anything else? Like the wires burning up or anthing like that?

I had 55w and switched to 100w in my 500s. just had a little extra heat on the lamp but the wiring stayed cool.

looks good! :great:

only thing I would consider doing is wrapping the wires in some loom, to keep normal driving vibrations from eating into the coating and causing a short


:great:

for 100w bulbs id recommend a min of 14ga wire from the relay going to the lights also them wires look awful small in the pics

Thanks I’m pretty proud of the way it came out. :great: Ya’ll should see my stereo wiring, you’d think I have OCD it’s so clean

I don’t think it’s a problem to put in the 100s so long as you don’t overload your relay or fuses.

The 55w bulbs are good for 1.5 times the reach of the high beam but at high beam distance there is lots of light which is nice. I’ve found that I prefer to drive with my low beams and the 500s over high beams and 500s just because there is light everywhere and there is no overlap between the two sets of light.


On my way home tonight I missed a raccoon thanks to these new guys:banger:

That's the wiring harness that came in the box. I think the wires are 18 gauge which seems good to me. I think 100s in there wont be a problem but I will let experience chime in.

Did you just run the wire under the fuse in this photo??

most people throw that wire harness it come's with in the garbage and start over

I don't have a aux fuse box in my rig so I just taped into the cig lighter. The power from there is only to flip the relay so there isn't much load going on there.

looks great, nice clean install.