Well,

This weekend I finally got off my tail and did a couple easy lighting projects on my '97 4rnr. The stock 97 headlights are pretty much wimpy, and after a few too many miles of washboard, they acquired a new habit of shaking loose their aim points to stare 5 feet in front of the truck (not exactly useful for freeway driving). Even before that, I was never happy with the light thrown by these lights.

So this weekend, I joined the masses who have upgraded from the 97 to the 99 headlights, and while I was in there, put in one of the upgraded wiring harnesses.

Oh man, what a fabulous difference. Brighter, whiter, happier truck! Highly recommend this pair for people with the 96-98 headlights.

Anyone want some 97 headlights?

 

how about some pics?!

 

scott,

can you write more about the wiring harness upgrade? and pics too?

also, are you giving away those 97 lights? if so, my brother up in no cal might want them as spares.

bob

 

About the wiring harness upgrade, I don't remember the exact manufacturer off the top of my head, I'll look it up when I get home tonight. But it was dead easy.

The harness (similiar to the one on http://www.suvlights.com, on the headlight wire harness page, the second one down), was very simple to hook up. It has two plugs that go into your headlights, two ground wires (one with each headlight plug, one plug that you plug the existing headlight plug into, two leads for power, and a pair of relays.

What I did was:

1. Remove battery cables (I'm paranoid)
2. Remove existing plugs from headlights
3. Plug harness plugs into headlights
4. Take ground wires from harness plug, and attach to forward screw holding quarter panels on (pick your location)
5. Take relays, and attach them to ground bolt near the battery (or drill a new place for it)
6. Take power leads, and put them on accessory battery post (or hook them to wherever you want to take direct battery power from these days)
7. Seal off the now unused headlight lead (the one that used to go to the passenger side light). Electrical or duct tape; just to keep any water out.
8. Replace battery cables.
9. Zip tie the new harness in place as appropriate.







The way I did it, the only tool required was a 10mm socket. If you want to ground in a different place, or attach the relays elsewhere, you may want to do something else.

Pics when I get home tonight.

 

I carry basically the same harness for about $20 less:



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

In any event, I would always upgrade the wiring first before popping for new lamps, you may find what you have is actually capable of putting out a decent amount of light as-is, once you feed them enough current.

 

Yep, you definitely have a better deal. (and a much better model of what I have instead of the pic I posted; suvlights was the only one I could remember.)

The numbers I have seen quoted for both parts of the changes I made was about 30% more light for the headlight assembly change, and 30% more light for the harness. Since I don't have an illumination monitor, I can't do more than repeat heresay. Seat of the pants was a very, very nice improvement.

(I think when I bought my kit several months ago, Roger was just offering the parts and know-how... Now he's got it laid out clean... buy it from him! )

 

Pics added to harness part...

 

How do these harnesses work? Do they make the high and low beams work together or something? Or they increased the voltage to the bulb decreasing the lifespan of my silverstars in this case.

 

None of the above actually. If you look at the stock wiring (long description on my web page above), there is a whole bunch of factory wiring involved in the headlights. When the lights are turned on, a relay supplies power to everything. including the headlights (at least on the earlier trucks). Then the wires run from thehigh and low beam back to the combo switch on the steering column where one or the other is grounded to turn on that light. So there is a long run of wires (rather undersized) that feed back to switch to make the lights go on and off. That combo switch could be switching upwards of 20 amps on and off. That the relay harness does is to let the stock headlight circuit turn a high and low beam relay on and off (20 milli-amps instead of 20 amps), then the relays supply power to the headlights within a few feet of the lights themselves. What this does is to reduce the voltage drop from the factory wiring of up to 2 volts down to a few 10ths of a volt. And instead of shortening the lifetime of the lamps, it will actually lengthen the lifetime. Halogen lamps actually burn out faster if run below their rated voltage, so keeping the voltage up to where it is supposed to be is better for the lamp life. The harness only supplies the lights with the normal system voltage, it is not boosted, unless of course you are comparing it to the weak factory headlight voltage.

The tricky part about doing this on a Toyota is that they use a switched ground wiring system vs. switched power that most other vehicles use. So a special harness designed to work in the Toyota headlight wiring is needed. While other harnesses can be made to work, you might find that the high beam indicator does not work properly. The switched-ground harness I have includes extra circuitry to make the high beam indicator work right.

 

Thanks for the resolution. Yeah Ive noticeced my headlights do dim. Ive noticed when im about to park and a gas it a lil the headlighs get a tad brighter and go back down as the gas is depressed. If its for 20 bucks I would be interested!. This be a neat project before I upgrade to HIDS.

 

Roger, Do you know if the 2004 Tacos are still ground switching? I upgraded my bulbs and now would like to get some wiring done. I am interested in getting the little kit you sell, let me know please.

 

Don't know for sure, but if you have DRLs, then likely it is switched power. You can always follow the simple tests I list on the web page:
http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTri...l#HarnessTypes
to determine which type you have. Or if that is too much bother, get the switched ground harness and if you find it does not work (low beams will not operate), then do the simple mod. listed on the page to convert it to switched power. It is easy co convert switched-ground to switched-power as you just have to bypass some components in the harness. For the opposite conversion, harder to do as you have to add components.