Hi/Lo Headlight Conversion
12-31-2012, 09:22 AM
#1
Salvage Yard Pro
Thread Starter
Hi/Lo Headlight Conversion
I've seen the hi/lo headlight kits for the Chevy advertised on Stacy David's Gearz. The kit appears to be no more than a set of hot wires run from the battery to a relay, to the low beam on each headlight that is triggered by the high beams. When you flip the high beams on, you get both the high and low beam at the same time giving allot more light. Here's my idea.........
I run the back roads with my 6" off road spots and light the road up pretty good for a long distance. With the high beams and the 6" lights, I get a good wide beam. When I pull the switch back that flashes both high and low beams, I get the added benefit of an even wider beam right up at the truck. Running down the back roads in thick wooded deer country, it really gives you allot more visibility.....and after wiping out a huge doe Friday night, in my ambulance thank goodness, I decided I'm going to add a hi/lo beam kit to my '95. This will be an added advantage of not having to reach for the off road light switch when I come up on an on coming vehicle.
If my thinking is correct, this should work. And yes, I know it creates more heat and lessens the life span of the single hi/lo beam bulbs.
1. Run a hot wire from the battery to each headlight
2. Connect each hot wire to a 40 amp relay at post 30
3. Run a jumper from each high beam wire to post 85 on each relay
4. Run a jumper from post 87 on each relay to each low beam wire
5. Connect each post 86 to ground
6. In my case, keeping in mind my 3G 130 amp alt, I'm going to run a second trigger wire from my high beams to my 6" off road lights relay.
Under normal driving conditions, low beam will be low beam and the trigger on the relays will be off so no power can feed back to the high beams or off road lights. When I flip my high beams on, I'll get hi/lo and off roads. In my testing, I see no battery drop at 55mph while holding the high beam switch back with the off road lights on. I've driven about 10 miles while holding the hi/lo switch back on several occasions and I've had no issues. I know the bulbs won't last as long if I use this option for extended periods, but I keep a spare bulbs in the glove box and am not really worried about that issues. I'll be operating off of a separate pair of hot wires, so no worries about overloading the factory wiring. In fact, thinking about it now, one wiring kit should feed both sets of headlights, so install time is probably 20 -30 minutes.
Any thoughts, other than the fact that I'll need to disconnect my off road lights when I go in for my annual vehicle inspection?
By the way, the deer is currently buried.......in ice in my cooler. She's gonna make some fine steaks. [IMG]
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[IMG]
[/IMG]
I run the back roads with my 6" off road spots and light the road up pretty good for a long distance. With the high beams and the 6" lights, I get a good wide beam. When I pull the switch back that flashes both high and low beams, I get the added benefit of an even wider beam right up at the truck. Running down the back roads in thick wooded deer country, it really gives you allot more visibility.....and after wiping out a huge doe Friday night, in my ambulance thank goodness, I decided I'm going to add a hi/lo beam kit to my '95. This will be an added advantage of not having to reach for the off road light switch when I come up on an on coming vehicle.
If my thinking is correct, this should work. And yes, I know it creates more heat and lessens the life span of the single hi/lo beam bulbs.
1. Run a hot wire from the battery to each headlight
2. Connect each hot wire to a 40 amp relay at post 30
3. Run a jumper from each high beam wire to post 85 on each relay
4. Run a jumper from post 87 on each relay to each low beam wire
5. Connect each post 86 to ground
6. In my case, keeping in mind my 3G 130 amp alt, I'm going to run a second trigger wire from my high beams to my 6" off road lights relay.
Under normal driving conditions, low beam will be low beam and the trigger on the relays will be off so no power can feed back to the high beams or off road lights. When I flip my high beams on, I'll get hi/lo and off roads. In my testing, I see no battery drop at 55mph while holding the high beam switch back with the off road lights on. I've driven about 10 miles while holding the hi/lo switch back on several occasions and I've had no issues. I know the bulbs won't last as long if I use this option for extended periods, but I keep a spare bulbs in the glove box and am not really worried about that issues. I'll be operating off of a separate pair of hot wires, so no worries about overloading the factory wiring. In fact, thinking about it now, one wiring kit should feed both sets of headlights, so install time is probably 20 -30 minutes.
Any thoughts, other than the fact that I'll need to disconnect my off road lights when I go in for my annual vehicle inspection?
By the way, the deer is currently buried.......in ice in my cooler. She's gonna make some fine steaks. [IMG]
[/IMG][IMG]
[/IMG]
Last edited by unit505; 12-31-2012 at 09:25 AM.
12-31-2012, 09:43 AM
#2
Sounds about right to me, but I'm no expert with this. In my honest opinion I would invest in an led bar and save yourself a lot of time and work, and it can be transferred to any vehicle.
12-31-2012, 11:31 AM
#3
Salvage Yard Pro
Thread Starter
LED Light bar? Yeah right! We do these mods to save money for the most part. The whole point behind this is for a single flip of the headlight switch to gain some peripheral lighting and activate the off road lighting. I don't need the led lighting, although cool, not worth the money to me at this moment. My $20 Harbor Freight off road lights light up the same distance as your led light bar. Just not as pretty. I've put them side by side on a 2 mile bridge with a buddy of mine and his F250 with the Rigid 40" bar. His were prettier and whiter, but did not outperform my 100w spots. I got to laugh at him for his $1000 investment.
Anyway, just came in from testing the theory, and it's a FAIL at the moment. The red wire on the headlight harness is high beam and with the headlight switch on low beam, I'm getting around 3 volts through that red wire, enough to trigger the relay and activate the high beam feed from the relay. I don't know why there is voltage on the high beam wire on low beam, but this is probably the reason there is no hi/lo kit for the ford truck that I can find. The operational theory is sound. The kit does what it should, but the voltage present in the high beam wiring voids out a kit. I don't know if this present voltage is part of the multi-function switch or what. This issue will also effect the plan to wire the off road lights to the high beam via a relay. I'm going to go out in a little bit and test the '94 and see if it also has voltage present on the high beam side when the low beam is on. If so, then I'm pretty confident that it's a multi-function switch issue that I cannot solve.
Anyway, just came in from testing the theory, and it's a FAIL at the moment. The red wire on the headlight harness is high beam and with the headlight switch on low beam, I'm getting around 3 volts through that red wire, enough to trigger the relay and activate the high beam feed from the relay. I don't know why there is voltage on the high beam wire on low beam, but this is probably the reason there is no hi/lo kit for the ford truck that I can find. The operational theory is sound. The kit does what it should, but the voltage present in the high beam wiring voids out a kit. I don't know if this present voltage is part of the multi-function switch or what. This issue will also effect the plan to wire the off road lights to the high beam via a relay. I'm going to go out in a little bit and test the '94 and see if it also has voltage present on the high beam side when the low beam is on. If so, then I'm pretty confident that it's a multi-function switch issue that I cannot solve.
12-31-2012, 11:37 AM
#4
LED Light bar? Yeah right! We do these mods to save money for the most part. The whole point behind this is for a single flip of the headlight switch to gain some peripheral lighting and activate the off road lighting. I don't need the led lighting, although cool, not worth the money to me at this moment. My $20 Harbor Freight off road lights light up the same distance as your led light bar. Just not as pretty. I've put them side by side on a 2 mile bridge with a buddy of mine and his F250 with the Rigid 40" bar. His were prettier and whiter, but did not outperform my 100w spots. I got to laugh at him for his $1000 investment.
Anyway, just came in from testing the theory, and it's a FAIL at the moment. The red wire on the headlight harness is high beam and with the headlight switch on low beam, I'm getting around 3 volts through that red wire, enough to trigger the relay and activate the high beam feed from the relay. I don't know why there is voltage on the high beam wire on low beam, but this is probably the reason there is no hi/lo kit for the ford truck that I can find. The operational theory is sound. The kit does what it should, but the voltage present in the high beam wiring voids out a kit. I don't know if this present voltage is part of the multi-function switch or what. This issue will also effect the plan to wire the off road lights to the high beam via a relay. I'm going to go out in a little bit and test the '94 and see if it also has voltage present on the high beam side when the low beam is on. If so, then I'm pretty confident that it's a multi-function switch issue that I cannot solve.
Anyway, just came in from testing the theory, and it's a FAIL at the moment. The red wire on the headlight harness is high beam and with the headlight switch on low beam, I'm getting around 3 volts through that red wire, enough to trigger the relay and activate the high beam feed from the relay. I don't know why there is voltage on the high beam wire on low beam, but this is probably the reason there is no hi/lo kit for the ford truck that I can find. The operational theory is sound. The kit does what it should, but the voltage present in the high beam wiring voids out a kit. I don't know if this present voltage is part of the multi-function switch or what. This issue will also effect the plan to wire the off road lights to the high beam via a relay. I'm going to go out in a little bit and test the '94 and see if it also has voltage present on the high beam side when the low beam is on. If so, then I'm pretty confident that it's a multi-function switch issue that I cannot solve.
But back to the headlights, that makes sense but with a little work I'd think it'd be a simple jump...
12-31-2012, 11:46 AM
#5
Salvage Yard Pro
Thread Starter
I'm not smart enough to figure out where this voltage is coming from. It took literally 20 minutes to wire this relay harness up, but this lingering voltage has me stumped. As far as the light bars, they are awesome, mainly because they're pretty much indestructible and the 40" bar only draws like 14 amps, but I could do allot with that much money. I'm gonna keep studying this issue.
12-31-2012, 12:13 PM
#6
I'm not smart enough to figure out where this voltage is coming from. It took literally 20 minutes to wire this relay harness up, but this lingering voltage has me stumped. As far as the light bars, they are awesome, mainly because they're pretty much indestructible and the 40" bar only draws like 14 amps, but I could do allot with that much money. I'm gonna keep studying this issue.
