After following my daughter to her house this afternoon, she informed me that I had a headlamp out... I couldn't believe it! Wednesday of last week I know for a fact that all lights worked since I did a walk around after hooking our camper up before leaving Thursday morning to check that very thing, lights! And I am quite certain I did the same a few times during our trip... but sure enough, the lower bulb on the passenger side is no longer working as of today... And as of this afternoon when filling up, I have 2006 hours on the truck. It's a 22 with stock halogen headlamps. I would have thought they would have lasted more than 2000 hours... ah well...

So I scoured a few of the head light threads here this afternoon... I wanted to stick with halogens... you know, the whole LED's in a halogen housing seems to be a hotter topic than gas vs diesel! It seems like the best options were the Sylvania Ultra's, but they didn't even sound to be all that great, and barely better than stock. On the other end of the spectrum, I would love to get a set of GTR Ultra 3's, but to be honest, with all that is going on right now, $600 for a set of bulbs (that still aren't overwhelmingly praised) is flat out of the picture. I also read a bit about the Hikari's, but they didn't seem to be overwhelmingly positive either... So, I narrowed it down to a set of SeaLight H13/9008 or the BeamTech H13's, both of which are LED's, however, they did seem to have a lot of good reviews around here about them both. It did seem that the BeamTech's are more widely used though... so, that is what I went with. I ordered a set of 4 for $80 and they should be here in a few days... But go ahead... shame me now for going with LED's in my halogen housings...

I will also add that I need to adjust mine. I have messed with them before, but never really did it right. I used to get flashed on occasion, but I believe it was more so due to always having 4 lights on rather than 2... my opinion anyway. But, it's been a long while since I have been flashed, even when towing. Also, the little bulb shield (I think that is the right term... the part that sits right in front of the actual bulb inside the housing) on one of mine seems to be pointed in not the same directions. Like I said, I have messed with the raising and lowering of them before, but one of them seems to be pointed down farther than the other one no matter how I turn that adjustment screw... it don't look right, so I need to find a place that I can pull up to a wall and make actual adjustments. Truth be told, that seems harder to do than I would imagine... but I have an idea that may work when I go to FL week after next!

Anyway, while this thread is about headlights, my main question was about how to access the bulbs... it seems there are 3 options:

1. Shove your toy hands down there and just do it without removing anything! Problem is, I don't think my hands will fit... but I will give it a try when it's not pouring down rain!
2. Remove the front grill and then each headlight housing. The biggest issue with this seems to be accessing the lower 10 mm bolts under the headlight housing. I have pulled my bumper off to install the Forklift North Hitch, so I imagine I have access to them without lowering the bumper, but I will have to check. This actually sounds the easiest method to me... I think... I do like that access to each bulb would then be super easy as the housing would be removed.
3. Leave the grill alone and remove the battery and tray on the driver side and the airbox on the passenger side, and then still go up behind the wheel well liners to access the lower bulbs (maybe just on one side?). For whatever reason this seems to be more involved than removing the bumper. But, this may also give me reason to also remove the passenger side battery and clean up some of the aux wires I have... but that may be more than I want to do for now... seems like a good job for another day!

So, if you have changed the bulbs in your 22 Super Duty, how did you gain access? And if you tried multiple ways, which way did you find to be the "best" way?

 

I got a 2010 5.4 3v f150, but I bought these headlights and have had 0 issue, I just aimed the housing down a bit and the passenger side one to the right to help light up the side of the road.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but I already ordered the BeamTech's. But I was more interested in folks preferred approach to replacing them in a 22 (or 20-22) Super Duty with the 6.7 though. I figure it's pretty much the same in the 17-19, but not completely sure...

 

Have you looked into Morimotto? I replaced my old tundra headlights with their product and was happy with them.
LED bulbs and headlight kits are stupid expensive. Also, not getting the correctly bulb in a halogen housing is important…you can always tell when someone has replaced their bulbs and they just aren’t correct for the housing they are in. Glad I opted for the LED package on my 2022.

 

I have read too much horrible stuff to consider Morimoto... to be fair, most of it is about their full headlight assemblies rather than just the bulbs, but it's been enough to turn me off of their products completely. If I were to spend that kind of money on bulbs, it would have been the GTR Ultra 3's. They seem to have much better reviews, however, for that price, there is still quite a bit of less than happy reviews too... The BeamTechs seem to have a good reputation around here at least and didn't hit my pocket book too hard.

And yes, I wanted the OE LED's, but I also wanted an XLT. To get to the point to add in the LED headlights from what I wanted would have been over $10k more... and they ain't worth that! I was completely fine with the OE halogens. I run Bambi mode and installed some SeaLight amber fogs, so for me, I have never personally found the road ahead of me difficult to see or found myself wanting more. I am not saying that LED's aren't better, just that I haven't felt the need for it. But now one of the bulbs are out and I would rather change them all out rather than just one... so I figured I would give the BeamTech's a try. If these don't work out, I would likely give the Sylvania Ultra's a try, however, I have read less than great reviews on those as well... I feel like once the OE (halogen) bulbs are out it becomes a chasing game no matter which bulbs you go with... we will see though...

However, in this thread, I am less interested in bulb choice as I have already ordered them and more interested with approach to changing them.