I finally got around to doing this today. Went smoothly, looks good, all of that.

I have a question for those that already did this or may be someone with a 2005+ can tell me if this is normal although I used the aftermarket Eagle Eyes and not factory lights

Anyway, the lights seem to act weird. On high beam, they are bright white and a definite improvement. One you switch to low beams, it is a slow change and the lights kind of fade into view and hit a higher point on the wall and are more yellow. Also, now my high beam indicator on the dash has changed behavior. On low beams, it is on, but dim, on high beams, it is bright like normal. I am pretty sure that before the conversion that indicator was either on or off; not dim/bright.

Seems like a low power or possibly a ground problem since that indicator is on now. However, I am pretty good at chasing down electrical issues, and I just cannot find anything that looks suspicious.

I used the standard conversion harness that is all over eBay and the assemblies came with bulbs already installed. I might do away with the harness and hard wire the connector.

Went and looked at the bulbs. Nothing special. Made in Korea, H13/9008, 60/55W, 2T6(whatever that means). No brand name.

Have you guys that have done this conversion experienced this?

 

I did the swap a few years back and never saw this behavior.. Maybe its in the wiring?

 

I would think the wiring too. I just don't see anything that is off. Unless those conversion harnesses are somehow wired incorrectly. I thought maybe something in the bulbs might be bad. Back to tracing circuits I guess.

 

At first I thought it would be a power supply issue and that the wiring could not keep up, except that the high beams are nice and bright, so that is not it.

I am at even more of a loss now. I swapped out one of the new bulbs with an original one. Everything went back to normal. However, if I take that original one out and leave that socket empty so that just one of the new ones is installed, then I get this behavior again. So as long as I have an old bulb installed, it works fine, 2 new bulbs or one new bulb alone and I get this behavior.

 

So I am at a bit of a loss. I have isolated this to the bulbs, but I bought some better ones and still have the issue. What is happening is that, on low beams, the lights are grounding back through the high beam circuit. So on low beam, there is power in that circuit and the indicator lights up dimly. Not sure what to do at this point. The ground to the lights is fine. I ran wires directly to the bulbs, eliminating the converter harness and insuring a solid ground. If I give power to just the low beam circuit and leave the high beam disconnected, it works like normal. Once the high beam circuit is connected the problem starts again. The old 9007s don't do this.

Not sure what would have changed from the 9007 to the H13 to cause this. They both use a common ground between the low and high and all four bulbs check out the same with continuity tests on all pin combinations. Maybe the 9007s have some internal resistance that prevents the ground going through the high circuit? Doesn't look like it though. However, when I check the voltage on low beams, the 9007s get 11.87 on the low hot wire and .02 on the high hot wire. When I check the H13s, I get 11.6 on the low hot wire and 8.3 on the high hot wire.

There is no going back to the old lights. Too much cut away to reinstall them. So the only thing I can think of at this point is either creating my own circuit and isolating high/low or treat this like an LED installation and put a diode or resistor on the high beam circuit.

I figure I am talking to myself at this point, but welcome any insight.

 

Keep working at it Scott. Your information is helpful. I want to do the conversion as well, and hope I don't run into those problems. I know it can be frustrating when you don't really have time to deal with it...

 

Here's how I wired mine.. Didn't want to cut my original connectors off

 

I figured it out. Kind of foolish since I know better than to trust anything I buy like this and should just build it myself. But I did this time and assumed that harness was correct and used that as a pinout reference for the H13 bulbs. Harness was not correct, so my tests were flawed.

Just didn't sit right with me that there would be that kind of difference between the 9007 and H13 internally, there just couldn't be. So I started over and found a pinout reference for the H13 and went from there with new tests. Harness had the ground and high beam swapped. So the symptoms I was seeing made perfect sense. If I would have just wired this up myself instead of trusting that harness, I would have found that pinout initially and saved all this hassle. That's what I get for trying to take a shortcut.

Anyway, egg on my face, but it is working fine now. Lights are brighter, operating correctly, and look nice on the truck.

 

I have the Eagle Eyes on my truck, love them... there has to be something goofy in your wiring...