Headlight upgrade

[vangremlin]

I did a headlight upgrade this weekend.  I went with new headlamp bodies that use a replaceable H4 bulb that I bought off eBay.  I also purchased a new wiring harness, complete with relays, from the same seller.   It was very straight forward.  It did take me several hours because I also put in new adjusters and replaced the headlamp buckets at the same time, as the old ones were slightly broken where two of the adjusters went in.

The seller advertises  the harness as "plug and play" but I had to rearrange the wires in the plug that fits into the existing headlight harness.  The ground wires didn't line up, and the high beam wire wasn't in the right place either.  It was pretty easy to pop out the connectors and put them in the proper slots.

Headlights:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/230992544051?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Harness:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/331214602226?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Low beams:



High beams:

[eaglefreek]

Good job. I used the same headlights and harness on my dad's Oldsmobile Delta 88 about 3 weeks ago. I had to make some changes. I had a heck of time with the highs and lows working properly. The high beams would sometimes stay on after turning them off. Other times the low beams wouldn't come on. The harness only uses one fuse and the low beam relay gets its power from the 87a pin on the high beam relay. The solution was to supply power to the low beam relay with it's own power wire and fuse to the battery. In doing this it fixed the issue and he will at least have lows or highs if one of the fuses blow.

[vangremlin]

The solution was to supply power to the low beam relay with it's own power wire and fuse to the battery. In doing this it fixed the issue and he will at least have lows or highs if one of the fuses blow.

That's a nice mod.  I'll have to add that to my to-do list.  Thanks for the suggestion.  And I think it was you who first provided the link to that seller. 

[eaglefreek]

The solution was to supply power to the low beam relay with it's own power wire and fuse to the battery. In doing this it fixed the issue and he will at least have lows or highs if one of the fuses blow.

And I think it was you who first provided the link to that seller.

Yeah, when I did it on my Eagles, I built them myself, but decided to try the already built harness for my dad's car because of time constraints. Overall it's a good harness except for the one power lead.

[amcfool1]

Hi, just got an upgrade harness from danielsternlighting. Not in the car yet, but looks very well built, everything heavy duty, puts the original wiring to shame. not cheap, but mr. stern will work with you. highly recommended. thanks gz

[MortenB]

I replaced the incandescent bulbs with halogen and added a relay system.  2 filaments come on at low beam, all 6 filaments come on at high beam;  it's awesome!  Never had a car shine so brightly in the dark without having extra lights installed.

[rmick]

Here is a little cheaper harness
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CERAMIC-H4-HEADLIGHT-RELAY-WIRING-HARNESS-4-HEADLAMP-LIGHT-BULB-SOCKET-PLUGS-SET-/121525356807?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item1c4b79c907

[carnuck]

that's for just 2 lights

[eaglefreek]

that's for just 2 lights

Looks like 4 to me.

[carnuck]

2 of the 4 connectors are like this.

NVM: The other 2 are hiding in the first pic. I was wrong or they used a stock photo. The ad says 4 headlights

[eaglefreek]

I only see one of those. It plugs into the existing harness to turn on the appropriate  relay when you are using the headlights.

[vangremlin]

This one looks almost identical to the one I purchased. I see that it is delivered directly from  Hong Kong.   I believe Eaglefreek is correct about the connectors.

[amcfool1]

Hi. if you want a heavy duty AMERICAN built harness, go with danielsternlighting. again, not cheap, about $160. Each one is custom made, and no, I don't work for him, just top of the line stuff. thanks, gz

[Nightpath]

I know this thread may be a bit long in the tooth, but if you find a junked Eagle the headlight mod is really easy to make using a few parts and some spare wiring.

On the passenger side fender under the hood near the firewall are 2 relays, unbolt those, cut the wires and BAM, you have your high/low relay holders ready to go. Pick up 2x40 AMP relays.

Remove the stock Eagle headlight harnesses and use the 4 plastic connectors. I used 12 gauge wiring to put it all together.

I used this to build my headlight relay system (as well as for offroad lights). Keep in mind that my headlights are converted from a Jeep so the low beam lines just carry to the low beam bulbs.

Something interesting I found out though, the Jeep lights are just a larger version of the Eagle Hi/Low beams, which means that technically you can get 4 of those and rewire the connectors to have 4 headlights ripping the universe a new when you do this mod.

[vangremlin]

Thanks for posting the schematic Nightpath.  Thumbs up to you.

One thing I discovered with the harness I used is that when I turn my fog lights on, my high beams also come on.  This is the opposite of what should happen, but it does provide a lot of light!  I haven't taken the time to figure out a fix yet.  Very rarely use the fog lights so its not a high priority.