Thought I'd share a leetle upgrade with yall.

As I commute to college and home I go through some very dark, long roads.

Figured it was time to upgrade the old sealed beams, and I'm not a huge fan of the lame blue HID's, so I went H4 route. I also took the power out of the headlight switch to prolong it's life and made a completely new harness, using the old switch to activate it.

I custom made some sockets and relay holders as well, using 12AWG and 14AWG.

Here's my wiring diagram. I can take pictures of the real thing if people want more in-depth detail. @ PWR DIST in the picture is at my new relay box which I stole off a 00's Ford Focus. They work really well for the the MK VIII fan upgrade, and working any other accessory you may have.




And some before/after pictures.

Here is the sealed beam spread on my garage door:



Nothing to really write home about.
Then some pictures on the well-lit freeway with the low beams on. As you can see my sealed beams are totally emasculated by the lights around me, as well as projecting a ton of light to the sides. Useless IMO, when do you need to see right next to your left front tire?





And then my pattern on a semi-dark road, with the low beams.




You can tell even my camera is like "wahh I want more light"

So I put in the Hella 7" round conversions that house a H4 bulb. I also ditched the stock 55w/60 for the more off-road friendly 55/100's, meaning they are still a 55w low beam, which is DOT approved, but they have a 100w high beam instead of a 60w, which is the DOT approved limit. Yes its illegal.

Whatever.

They see "hella" good at night!

Low beam spread on a wall, from way farther away. I was on a hill, don't worry the lights are level.




Ahh, soooo much better. Highway, low beams:





As you can see, there's less side spread, and more light in front of me.

And a TRULY dark road, low beams.




And finally, dark road, high beams. The pictures really don't do it justice, those yellow signs on the right are like 1/4 mile away at least. Next time I'm stump jumping I'll take some pictures. It's almost like daylight out there.





Overall, I'm really happy with the conversion. And I did it on a college student's budget too, $80 for housings, $50 in pigtails, $10 for wiring, $20 for bulbs. Or in side jobs, 1 intake manifold gasket on a late model blazer and 2 oil changes.

 

Nice Dan, reps sent.

 

i have the h4 housings from LMC but those bulbs sound awesome, you said they were from HELLA?

 

So, in simple math, $100 for the headlight upgrade, and $60 for the wiring upgrade?

I looked into making my own harness, but couldn't touch it for the price that LMC sells the replacement relay wiring harness ($29) so I bought that. I have heard that the relays are of questionable quality, but we'll see.

If it is only $100 for the headlights upgrade, I may do this in the future. Good job, and this should be in some sort of tech folder.

 

Sounds awesome I like the idea of the 55/100w bulbs so you have a little extra for those HID punks

 

Those after pics are really en"lightening". Sorry, I couldn't resist. But in all honesty, what a HUGE difference.

 

Thanks gang!

mike-thanks man!

763- Yeah, bulbs are from Hella. Got em from Summit racing. The Hella lenses are glass and can handle a ton of heat, so if the LMC ones are plastic I'd be weary about even the regular 55/60's, the low beams throw some heat too.

Ted- Yeah that sounds right, haha. And as for the LMC, I just don't like plug and play stuff that much, cos I end up re-engineering it all. Pick up some relays from a parts store and you should be set! $100 for the lenses and 55/100 bulbs, all Hella from Summit.

Buttwheat- haha yeah my friends can turn off their headlights and drive in front of me, thats how bright those suckers are.

74-hahaha that was so corny...

 

I forgot about doing this mod years ago. I did install halogen sealed beams and converted it over to relays. Conversion housings ive seen in the past were cheap looking. Maybe they were from LMC, i cant remember. I didnt know Hella did these till I read your post. Thanks for the write up. I may just do this mod after the holidays.
Was it a drop in fit? No mods to the adjusting bucket? Did it come with the wiring adapter to fit the H4 plug?

 

Nice write up Dan. I'm thinking of somthing similar but I with rectangular headlights on my '78.

 

Do you have any pictures of them on the truck? I've been contemplating on whether or no to do the conversion on my 79. I'd like to see how the "jewel" look goes with the truck.

 

Hella is good stuff, just the H4 Conversions I'ld use .... or will use when I do it. I did up grade my '74 Trident's 7" headlight using an H4 conversion by Carello .... awesome even if just one.

 

9" - Yeah, the LMC ones may be plastic, but these are glass. Definitely a step up. No mods to any of the physical components so you can use your original trim rings and headlight buckets. It's a plug and play with the original sealed beam harness too if you'd like, but did not come with any extra/new harness. I took a NAPA "high temp" socket and redid it using 12g and 14g. See pics below

Kikkup-thanks mang. I believe Hella offers rectangular conversions too.

mike-see pics below

tbear-agreed!

So, ask and you shall receive. Pics on the truck:






Some pictures of the lens/bulb together. Some nice weatherproofing on the back there. And a PN on the box.






If you look closely on the bulb it says "for off - road use only"





My thuper-dooper pigtail. I'd peel it back buttttt its a royal pain. Just imagine 12G highbeam and ground circuit, 14G low beams.



This is that RED/YEL splice that I have in my wiring diagram. Uses the power to the footswitch as the control for the first relay in the system




A shot of my dedicated relay/fuse for one side. I have this setup on the other side, as well as a relay and circuit protection up in the first part of the system.



...And a shot of that Focus power distribution. I really dig this thing. I've got the relay and fuses in there for my headlights, fuel pump, cb, and interior accesories. The relays are in there for the fan, just not the fuses. They some meaty relays for the fan. From the factory, one is like the Chrysler ASD relay (can't think of what Ford calls it), the other is the high-speed fan and the box uses two of the really big kind (gray in this picture, spst), 2 of the medium (black, spdt) and about 5-10 smaller relays (little gray dudes, spdt) . Blah blah blah....

 

My 77 could use some cleaning up / organizing wires and stuff like that!

I see that you got the USA legal lights! Glad to see that was what you used and wa reporting on.

Thanks for the pics.

 

Nice write up!

Good to know this works out well.

Sounds somewhat similar to what I'm doing on the crew. I got euro spec H4 housings for a VW jetta though since I'm doing a custom core support anyway. I had looked back & forth at going Hella 55/100w or HID H4 bulb setups and got the HID stuff in trade for a bit of welding. So now I can awe all the H4 lovers in here while simultaneously annoying them with my "blue" (I went towards true white with my temp choice) HIDs.

 

Thanks for the great tip. I looked into this and found the Hellas at Amazon cheaper and you don't have to pay the $10 handling charge to Summit. $72 for housings and bulbs. Still 55/60watt but you could upgrade the bulbs later.