Courtesy of Gary's Garagemahal
Read it and weep.

most up-grades are basically illegal and get covered over in snow and ice....

Headlamps: Basically we have three possible choices for upgrades:


• Halogen: Installing a headlamp that uses the H4 replaceable bulb is a significant step up, especially if coupled with a headlamp relay system using larger wiring. But, those headlamps vary significantly in quality, with some being classified as "junk" by Daniel saying "Stay away from it." My old standby of Hella is said to have problems with the low beam and high beam having different aiming points such that if you adjust for the high beams the lows will be way low, and if you adjust for the low beams the highs will be too high. But, the Cibie E-code headlamps are said to be the absolute best, with the Bosch units being good as well.

Then there is the question of what bulb to use in the headlamp. Daniel said in an email to me:
"Generally the optimal bulbs are precision-focus, ultra high luminance 60/55w items, $43.18/pair. It's tempting to grab for big wattage numbers (100/90, etc) but it's usually not the most productive way forward; please see bulb test results posted by my colleague Virgil at Interesting headlight bulb test results . Overwattage low beams would not be recommendable on that truck due to the high headlamp mount height -- either you tip the aim down far enough to avoid unsafe levels of glare (and your seeing distance is minimal) or you don't (and you'll eventually get ticketed or road raged for the glare you're causing)."

However, Daniel says, and we already knew, that a major part of any upgrade to the headlamps needs to be a set of relays with much larger wiring. He offers a kit, which has the components necessary, including ceramic sockets since the halogen bulbs get hot.


• HID: On this subject Daniel said "There are no legitimate HID headlamps to fit your vehicle (just headlite-shaped toys/junk). "HID kits" in halogen-bulb headlamps (any kit, any headlamp, any vehicle) do not work safely or effectively, which is why they are illegal whether you buy the lamps and the kit together in one go or separately. See Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply.


• LED: There are basically two ways to approach this - an LED bulb as a replacement for a halogen bulb, and a purpose-built LED light that has both the reflector and bulb included. What I've learned in my reading is that the LED bulbs that you put in the headlamp in place of a halogen bulb do not work properly at all. And the reason is that a halogen bulb is basically a point-source when viewed from the side so the manufacturer can shape the reflector to aim the light from that point. However, LED's are anything but point-sources and the source of the light is not where it should be, causing the reflection to go where it shouldn't. However, the purpose-built LED units can be very good as the reflector/lens combo was designed with the exact LED light source in mind.

Daniel's comments to me were "The "LED bulb conversions" now flooding the market are not a legitimate, safe, effective, or legal product. The failure is at the concept level, not the implementation level. These are a fraudulent scam. Not capable of producing even a fraction of the amount of light produced by the filament bulb they supposedly replace, let alone producing it in the right pattern for the lamp's optics to work.

But there's a number of engineered LED headlamps on the market -- they range in quality and performance from pathetic to excellent. The king daddy of them all is the JW Speaker item in chrome . Beam focus and width aren't as good as the JW Speaker lamp (there are streaks and spots in the beam pattern), but it's still objectively a fine headlamp. LED headlamps are *not* advisable if you do a lot of wintertime driving with heavy snow and slush; the LED headlamp lenses run cold so snow and ice build up on them instead of melting off like they do from a warm halogen lamp lens. But, in a later email he added "JW Speaker just released the newest version of their top-class LED headlamp in this size: http://www.jwspeaker.com/products/led-headlights-model-8910-evolution-2/?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=image&utm_campaign =8910%20Evolution%202%20Launch&utm_content=slider1 " . And, he said that headlamp does have heaters so could be used in heavy snow or slush.