So, the guy before me decided to install HIDs in my 1986 4Runner. They're super bright, but I know they weren't installed correctly because of a couple things.

1) when I try to turn on the brights, the front left light shorts out. It also shorts out sporadically while I'm driving.

2) The light projection pattern is absolutely crazy. When I'm cruising down the highway my beams are scattering light all the way up on top of the interstate signs.

I am really inexperienced with lighting and stuff, so any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Andy

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http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/show...timers-attempt

http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/show...t=toyota+truck

http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/show...t=toyota+truck

http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/show...t=toyota+truck

That should be some helpful reading in terms of fixing the output..

Now your best bet would be to return to halogen bulbs at this point 'till you get some real projectors for those lights. You should be using H4 bulbs..

But if you really want to keep the hids you should double check all the connectors to both bulbs and make sure everything is good. Does the left kick out ALL the time or only some? I believe the plug and play kits with H4 bulbs pull the bulb back to bring it closer to the reflector bowl, you could have an issue with the bulb itself in that regard where whatever the bulb is using to pull back (sometimes magnets, sometimes an electric solenoid..) is broken and causing a short..

But the sometimes on, sometimes off could either be ˟˟˟˟ty wiring or a ˟˟˟˟ty ballast. Check wiring first, and swap the ballast from left side to right side to see if the right side starts having issues.. Then swap bulbs left to right to see if it's a bulb issue or wiring issue.

Good luck!

www.theretrofitsource.com for projectors.. btw..

 

http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTri...HIDconversions

 

Hey guys, thanks for all the help so far. I won't have a chance to break everything open until this weekend though. I was just wondering, like Exist said, how difficult would it be to switch back to H4 bulbs? I mean I would like to get something that was better than the standard stock headlights (my HIDs currently have great output, just in a terrible pattern). It would be nice to have high beams and low beams too. Im open to any suggestions. Just give me ideas. Thanks!

 

Almost all conversion housings take H4 bulbs. You should be able to simply remove the HID kit and install halogen H4 bulbs. A headlight relay harness wouldn't be a bad idea either:

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...arness-243482/

 

The thing is, those conversion housings are complete garbage in terms of output. Mine threw scattered light everywhere except where I wanted it..

It depends how much work you'd like to do at this point.. Halogen H4 bulbs can be decently bright, but because those housings suck you're kind've in a poor position. Either retrofit real projectors and use your ballasts (if they're okay) and new bulbs (H4's wont fit in an actual projector) and go from there, like in those links I posted.. Or consider going with an E-Code housings (Hella are super nice, but the autopal replicas aren't bad either) and some good H4 bulbs - but at that point you're at the same price point as retrofitting projectors..

In terms of retrofitting it's actually incredibly straight forward. Cut a hole big enough for the projector - epoxy or bolt it to the housing - you're done.. That's what I did, and thats what I'd recommend you do with those housings.

If you don't want to retro your only set of lights, go back to sealed beams for a few weeks while you have the cash/time to do projectors in your ebay lights

 

You probably don't have high beams because you have a kit that isn't the bi-xenon or hi/lo. If you have low beams then there is no issues with the switched ground versus switched positive earlier mentioned. You can't switch bulbs either, you have to switch out the entire kit.

Standard HID


BI-Xenon


HI-LO



Light scatter problem is a typical issue with HIDs in a reflector housing. This is why they are illegal in nearly every state in the US. However, the housings you have are pure junk. I have had those and even with standard bulbs they scatter light bad. Those are your typical "euro" "projector" housings sold on ebay. They aren't projector housings. I would get rid of them.

To fix your photo links use the [IMG] code given by photobucket and paste that directly into your text box.

 

Not necessarily. Read that link I posted above. I had a similar flickering issue due to the interference between hard and floating grounds.

 

That might be true, however he's got an ES-0511 ballast, which is a single bulb, not hi/lo or bi-zenon. This verifies the non-operation in high beam mode.

 

The lenses you had are crap... now the only thing they are good for is projector retrofits.
Either do a retrofit, or get some roundeyes conversion lenses (www.roundeyes.com) and remove the HID kit.

 

Oh it is...trusht meh. Probably explains the flickering low beams too.

 

extreme22..... the ballast has NOTHING to do with hi/lo. you're putting out a lot of wrong info out there.

to the op, listen to exist and def go to hid planet and trs and get a proper "kit" with projectors, good harness, etc. or, piece one together yourself... cheap lights $20, harness $30, china hid bulbs/ballasts $40, projectors $100... i think you can do it for under $200 and have a proper hid projector set up with hi/lo and a clean cut off.

or, just rip everything non oem outta there and just get a pair of $10 h4 bulbs and plug em in there, done and problems solved. then, get a nice set of off road lights like a cheap pair of hella 500s, light forces or the kragen HID 7"'s for highway night time (with no traffic) or off road stuff.... in the city your headlights are worthless no matter what. you can get a nice set of off road lights for around $200 too.

 

Ok guys, so I'm definitely getting mixed reviews right now at this point. Really I just want to be able to have decently bright headlights with both high and low beams (it kills me to not have brights). To be honest, I'm pretty terrible with electronics and wiring (I'm only a 17 year old student) so I need a project that's not gonna be too difficult or expensive. I'm open to any ideas, either H4s or HID projectors, but I think I'm leaning a little more towards H4s right now. Any helpful input would be appreciated, and thanks for all the valuable I formation so far!

 

Just rip out everything not OEM and associated with the HID install and then put in a regular pair of h4 bulbs and plug the sockets from the oem wireing into them. Done. If the PO hacked into the oem wireing and cut the h4 plugs off vs. pluging them into an HID harness then figure that out, find the oem wires (there should be 3 for each headlight I think), a ground, a negative and a positive and buy then soder h4 plugs to the appropriate wires.

 

Dead serious putting projectors into our square lights is stupid easy. Bake the lenses off, cut a hole in the housing, epoxy the projector in place, and run a simple relay harness.. (1 wire to turn the rely on (I used the parking light)) Connect the relay to the battery for both ground and positive, and the last wire to the ballast positive wire.. Then plug your positive/negative wires from the projector into the high beam socket and common ground of the h4 socket and you're done.

Literally should take 2 hours.. Maybe 3.