Just bought a 97 Aerostar 4.0 w/182,000 miles. Runs good and looks good. Has blown out rocker panel on drivers side. Finally found two places on the net that has them. Anybody know if there are Euro headlights for the later years our just the sealed beam style? I really dont want to chop into the wiring and then have to find 86-91 headlight buckets.
The biggest problem with those later flushmount headlights are that they are made of plastic, and they start to fog up after a couple of years of sun exposure.
The second biggest problem with them is that they have poor light dstribution patterns. I don't know if Ford ever made an E-spec headlight for the European Aerostars, but if they're also plastic, I would not bother. If they existed, they would cost a lot more than retrofiting your van with the old sealed-beam type buckets and getting a good set of E-spec sealed beams, like from Cibie:
It's not all that hard to convert to the old style sealed beams. You just need to find a donor vehicle in your local scrap yard to find the buckets, the adjustment rings and screws, light sockets, and the corner markers for completeness.
If you don't want to spend the money for the E-spec lights, the Sylvania Xtravision lights work better than most, and are pretty cheap.
You will need to install relays in any case to keep your headlight and dimmer switches from burning up.
I posted a write-up about the conversion a while back, I'm sure it'll come up in a search. I might even search for it myself if I get bored... But the swap isn't as easy as it ought to be. Ford changed the stamping of the bulkhead panel that the lights mount to when they changed the lamps themselves. On both sides, one of the adjuster screw mount points has been changed - the stamped hole is much bigger then it was for the sealed beam's adjuster screw to accomodate a remote adjustment gearbox. I had to adapt the gearbox mechanism to accept the front-operated conventional adjustment screw. Because of the thickness of the gearbox, I had a hard time getting enough adjustment to keep the van from being cross-eyed. IIRC, I had to actually shim out the other side of the lamp to match. But I will say that the end result (with Hella H4 lamps installed) was well worth the effort.
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Rick Barnes
'66 Ford Ranchero - a mess
'79 Suzuki GS750E -daily rider
'84 Ford EXP Turbo Coupe - TBD
'88 Mazda 323GTX - winter/rally car
'91 Mercury Capri - summer car
'97 Ford Aerostar XLT AWD - DarkStar
Thanks Rick for the heads up. I am going to try a couple of junk yards tomorrow and maybe compare and see how much surgury I have to do. Too bad they dont make ones for the flush composite headlights.
Also, regarding the wiring and amperage, if I am converting to sealed beam, which I am converting to H4 bulbs, cant I just use my existing 9004 bulbs and wiring/sockets? And just use the euro housings?
No, you can't. The bulb socket for the H4 has a different pin configuration then the 9004 bulb does. You will have to change over the connector. A couple notes with regards to that too - the width of the bulb's connector blade that inserts into the socket plug is quite a bit wider on the H4 bulb, which at least in theory means that it can handle a greater amp load. The wiring attached to the stock harness plug is also pretty light duty, and in my experience, is likely to be corroded. The combination of the two results in a bit voltage drop (not a good thing).
You are much better off rewiring the harness plugs using new H4 sockets and 12 gauge (minimum) wire, routed from relays for both high and low beams. You can use the stock headlight power wires to trigger the relays. The reference in an earlier post to Dan Stern lighting is worthwhile - you should be able to find all the info you need to rewire the plugs.
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Rick Barnes
'66 Ford Ranchero - a mess
'79 Suzuki GS750E -daily rider
'84 Ford EXP Turbo Coupe - TBD
'88 Mazda 323GTX - winter/rally car
'91 Mercury Capri - summer car
'97 Ford Aerostar XLT AWD - DarkStar
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I had to install the small 86-91 Euro lights when doing the conversion for Germany.
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I had to do it to! well, Jerry, visit http://www.hella.com/produktion/Hell...e/HellaCOM.jsp to order headlight, but order headlight for VW T3, and use parts of 89-91 aero (small metal frame and bolts) to install it. This frame may be used from E-150 ore old Blazer...
Use european bulbs too, but not more to 180 WT.... You can install xenon headlight too. ($700 here, in ukraine, for parts, and about 100 for installation)
BTW, the thread where I wrote up how to do the sealed-beam/H4 conversion is here.
Ok....now it's my turn to be confused. Please, please correct me if I'm wrong:
From what I've been reading it seems to me that there are 3 different headlight configurations??? First, the ancient sealed beam, then a "sealed beam" with a replaceable bulb, and then the headlights with the plastic covers????
So, in order to go the the H4 type lamps, I would have to replace my "first generation" sealed beam bulb with a "second generation" reflector????
I'll simplify it a little: only two headlight configurations stock - sealed beams and flush-mount plastic lights. Through '91 the vans used the former and '92 and up used the later.
You got confused because you can swap out sealed beam bulbs (which are bulb/reflector/lens assemblies) with a lens/reflector unit (also called a bulb holder) that uses a separate bulb. These use an H4-type bulb, which installs from the back of the lamp similar to the way the bulb goes into a later plastic lens lamp. These bulb holders were commonly used in Europe, where the headlight laws were different and they were not saddled to the US DOT stupid guidelines. Consequently, the optics of the bulb holder are generally much better then that of a US-model sealed beam bulb, however this really depends on which bulb holders you use. So if you use a high quality H4 bulb holder, you can gain a marked improvement in forward lighting.
So, to recap: only two types of headlight from the factory. But if you have a van with sealed beams, you can easily upgrade them to a Euro-type H4 bulb holder. If your van is newer, you have to first convert it over to sealed beams, then you can perform the H4 upgrade. Clear as mud?
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Rick Barnes
'66 Ford Ranchero - a mess
'79 Suzuki GS750E -daily rider
'84 Ford EXP Turbo Coupe - TBD
'88 Mazda 323GTX - winter/rally car
'91 Mercury Capri - summer car
'97 Ford Aerostar XLT AWD - DarkStar
Yeah, thanks again, Rick for the info. I called my local yard today, and they
said they have some Aeros, so I will go tomorrow and see what I can find.
Interesting, too about the grill. Looks like my '97 had a fender bender at some point because I have an older grill with the oval in the center. I was working with one of those polishing kits today trying to get my cloudy headlights a little
better in the meantime, and I noticed the airbag sensor pushing on the center bar of the grill. I saw a decent looking grill for the 97 on Ebay, so I think I will just buy that.
Hey, too, has anyone done a digital dash swap? Or should I forget that?
About the grill - the center oval grills don't fit readily onto airbag equipped vans. When I swapped over the headlamps on my van, I swapped grills too. My '93 grill had hairline cracks in it, and I liked the look of the previous grill better. However, to fit it, I had to cut a notch in the grill bar the width of the sensor and about 3/8" deep. That left the sensor visually exposed, but it wasn't highly noticable since it's a sort of flat black color. Obviously, Ford restyled the grill as a way to cosmeticly cover the sensor, not because it looked better that way...
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Rick Barnes
'66 Ford Ranchero - a mess
'79 Suzuki GS750E -daily rider
'84 Ford EXP Turbo Coupe - TBD
'88 Mazda 323GTX - winter/rally car
'91 Mercury Capri - summer car
'97 Ford Aerostar XLT AWD - DarkStar
Odd thing about that grill; I replaced the cracked grill on my 1990 model with one from a 1994 model. The 94 model had a bigger oval emblem in the center than the older one. I'm pretty sure the 94 had an airbag sensor behind the grill.
The biggest problem with using those E-spec H4 lights in this country is that they're not DOT approved, and therefore, not really legal for use on roads. This despite the fact that they have much better light distribution than anything that is DOT approved. The Bosch lights I got actually has a DOT spec cast into the lens, but they were still not legal for street use because they do not have those aiming nubs on the lens surface.
Hella makes some lights called Vision Plus that use the H4 bulbs that are street legal. But many people who use them find their performance no better than regular sealed beams. It seems that they kept a lot of the optical qualities of US-spec lights.
It used to be possible to get HID drop-in conversions for those H4 lights, but I think the US government is cracking down on those. Many of those were very poorly made, and deserved to be taken off the market. But there were some that were well made, but it's hard to get those as well.
