What did you do with your GMT400 today...or yesterday....

[J_dude]

The point is just that the bulbs are a totally different size and shape (HID vs Halogen) so there is no physical way to make a reflector that is designed for a halogen bulb distribute light from an HID bulb in an effective, safe manner.
Can it sorta work? Yes.
Will people just suffer without flashing their hi beams at you out of fear that you’ll blind them even worse with yours if they do? Also yep lol.

It’s not the lenses, it’s the reflector.
Automotive lighting is actually a lot more high tech than it looks. The reflector is precisely engineered to direct light in all the right places, and none of the wrong ones.
And that little shield hasn’t much to do with it either, since the bulb doesn’t emit light from the front...

Anyway you’re response is basically what I expected. Sigh.
I repeat, check out HID Planet, there is so much more to lighting than most people think.

 

[MrMarty51]

I went very old fashioned on My 2000 K3500. Took the complete bulb mounting systems from a 1988 K1500, quad rectangle halogen(IIRC).
Brights relayed to dims. Got the dims set up quite high until people was flashing their brights then set them down quite a ways.
Now on brights, can spot a slow moving deer at 10 miles and they dont even need to be looking into the direction of the truck.

 

[Paveltolz]

BTW they are specifically not the halogen housings. Halogen housings have ribbing in the lens which scatters the light. These are euro clear lenses. The Lo beams have a cup over the bulb so they don’t burn the eyes of oncoming traffic. These were the housing style and lenses recommended by people here for HID lights.

I‘ve run the HID vs Halogen & multi brands of headlight housings gamut as well. Anyway, HID’s worked OK for low beams after taking care to get them aimed safely and considerately. But the high beams took far too long to activate which gave me a few seconds of driving blacked out. Not fun. I blame the brand and the ballasts and not the HID concept there. Got the ‘4-Hi’ harness to help but, in the long run have returned to standard housings and Sylvania Halogen bulbs.

As has been pointed out, its really the housings that are the key to success. I tried to source some that were supposedly designed to work with HID but, patterns were never ‘as advertised.’ I even had a set with a cup over the low beam bulbs but they failed to the point of being worthless. I blame the housing more than the bulbs.

 

[Big T]

I‘ve run the HID vs Halogen & multi brands of headlight housings gamut as well. Anyway, HID’s worked OK for low beams after taking care to get them aimed safely and considerately. But the high beams took far too long to activate which gave me a few seconds of driving blacked out. Not fun. I blame the brand and the ballasts and not the HID concept there. Got the ‘4-Hi’ harness to help but, in the long run have returned to standard housings and Sylvania Halogen bulbs.

As has been pointed out, its really the housings that are the key to success. I tried to source some that were supposedly designed to work with HID but, patterns were never ‘as advertised.’ I even had a set with a cup over the low beam bulbs but they failed to the point of being worthless. I blame the housing more than the bulbs.

All 4onHi relays solve the blackout problem you describe. Have not had the issues you describe with Lo. Well worth the additional brightness and the HID bulbs are now substantially cheaper than Halogens.

 

[Big T]

The point is just that the bulbs are a totally different size and shape (HID vs Halogen) so there is no physical way to make a reflector that is designed for a halogen bulb distribute light from an HID bulb in an effective, safe manner.
Can it sorta work? Yes.
Will people just suffer without flashing their hi beams at you out of fear that you’ll blind them even worse with yours if they do? Also yep lol.

It’s not the lenses, it’s the reflector.
Automotive lighting is actually a lot more high tech than it looks. The reflector is precisely engineered to direct light in all the right places, and none of the wrong ones.
And that little shield hasn’t much to do with it either, since the bulb doesn’t emit light from the front...

Anyway you’re response is basically what I expected. Sigh.
I repeat, check out HID Planet, there is so much more to lighting than most people think.

So your answer is believe what the internet HID Planet says, not what my eyes and experience tell me? If that were my default, then I’d be using Toyota WS ATF in the 4Runner transmission at $80 per quart. Same with the gear oil in the transfer case and differentials.

 

[J_dude]

So your answer is believe what the internet HID Planet says, not what my eyes and experience tell me? If that were my default, then I’d be using Toyota WS ATF in the 4Runner transmission at $80 per quart. Same with the gear oil in the transfer case and differentials.

Transmissions and automotive lighting aren’t exactly comparable are they? All I’m saying is do some reading, learn how lighting works. The way to get the most out of HID bulbs is in a set of projector housings. Anything else is wasting light, often putting it in the wrong places. You’d probably be surprised how much brighter your bulbs would be when set up in a proper projector. And I’d be willing to bet if you post a picture of your low beam cutoff shining against a building we will see a ton of light in the wrong places.

 

[Big T]

Transmissions and automotive lighting aren’t exactly comparable are they? All I’m saying is do some reading, learn how lighting works. The way to get the most out of HID bulbs is in a set of projector housings. Anything else is wasting light, often putting it in the wrong places. You’d probably be surprised how much brighter your bulbs would be when set up in a proper projector. And I’d be willing to bet if you post a picture of your low beam cutoff shining against a building we will see a ton of light in the wrong places.

Tried projector housings and they were worthless, which is why I ended up with this style. You’re treading through ancient history that I’ve already come down the learning curve on. Bottom line, the current set-up is superior to halogen lighting and no one has given me the brights in the 10+ years since I’ve been using them. I could give a shit about your internet test against a building. I do set the beams against the garage door to ensure their positions are correct and the same across both housings.

 

[J_dude]

Mmmkay so you tried crappy projector housings before settling on the current setup, and you’ve been running the current setup for over ten years. Then it stands to reason that your projector experiment anecdote is way out of date and you’re definitely not up to speed with the latest projector tech...

Oh well, you’ve made up your mind.

 

[Big T]

Mmmkay so you tried crappy projector housings before settling on the current setup, and you’ve been running the current setup for over ten years. Then it stands to reason that your projector experiment anecdote is way out of date and you’re definitely not up to speed with the latest projector tech...

Oh well, you’ve made up your mind.

Why do you persist on this? I’m running two K2500 Suburban 6.5s and the headlights are nowhere on my list of concerns. Sorry they bug you, but I live nowhere near you, a fact for I am thankful.

 

[Will L.]

Meh, Big T can just turn left and go through Watts, Compton, maybe another left and roll through South Central LA. Bright people over there and out comes the AK with 7.62mmX 39 off switches coming at 2,350 fps.
Besides that are the pickiest cops in the western US.

Kinda guessing in a decade one of the bad guys or good guys would have let him know one way or another…

 

[Big T]

Meh, Big T can just turn left and go through Watts, Compton, maybe another left and roll through South Central LA. Bright people over there and out comes the AK with 7.62mmX 39 off switches coming at 2,350 fps.
Besides that are the pickiest cops in the western US.

Kinda guessing in a decade one of the bad guys or good guys would have let him know one way or another…

Hey, that north and east side of Vegas can rival anything SoCal has and the hood gets angrier in the heat.

 

[ak diesel driver]

Best test there is is to have someone else drive your truck and then you can be the oncoming traffic

 

[Husker6.5]

Or, just ask a deer!

 

[Will L.]

Hey, that north and east side of Vegas can rival anything SoCal has and the hood gets angrier in the heat.

Yup. I grew up in the north east part. In the early 70’s- didn’t need a lock on the door- by mid 80’s need a round in the chamber.

 

[Big T]

Used a break between meetings to install the transmission seal, then the transfer case into 2014 4Runner. Later on installed the drive shafts and filled the case up with Mobil Delvac 75w90. Everything works perfectly. Just in time for my wife to drive it back to Montana leaving Thursday. Seems like I’m becoming the resident transfer case pro.

 

[J_dude]

then you can be the oncoming traffic

Yes, in a small car.

 

[J_dude]

a fact for I am thankful.

That’s ok, I’m sure I don’t need any more cheap headlight setups glaring in my eyes either

 

[Big T]

Took the ‘94 Suburban for a night drive and I had no less than 5 people in oncoming traffic give me the brights. Every single one of them were driving Subarus with COEXIST and Bernie Sanders bumper stickers. One did a u-turn and got into a road rage incident with me, but I quickly addressed that by squeezing them into the Jersey barriers. The nerve of such people. You’d think that they alone own the roads.

 

[dbrannon79]

Well hoping this will be the final saga on my steering for my rig. I had been hearing some sounds from the power steering pump in sharp turns that sounded like it was starving for fluid but it's wasn't low.

I went out into my garage digging around, I knew I had another pump in there somewhere amongst the disaster in there! Finally found it. Now mind you I have been dealing with power steering issues on this truck since I bought it. I had changed pumps a couple of times, boosters and gear boxes over leaks and stiff feeling steering. I think I finally solved the stiffness after I had rebuilt the gear box the first time, then after fixing my mistake having to put the BB's in correctly this last time. this pump sounding like it was starving for fluid has been going on for a while, but hasn't effected anything.

The pump that I had in the garage was new when I bought it and worked but I kept it while swapping parts trying to fix the stiffness feeling. well, with the current pump even after fixing the other issues it had, would always heat up the fluid rapidly, I had put a oven temp probe on the line because the starving noise would start only after things would heat up. the fluid temp would get up to 175+ degrees in just a short drive into town then the noise would start.

So with the stiffness feeling in the wheel now fixed, all the leaks fixed, (why I kept changing boosters) I decided to put the pump back on that I had bought new.

Now I had pulled this pump way back thinking that the parts store had sold me a generic "one size fits all" pump and thought it wasn't pushing fluid the truck needed for both the booster and the box. I pulled the current pump off the truck and pulled it from the reservoir, pulled out the other pump I had in the garage and sat them side by side... Lord only knows why I didn't notice this before, but comparing both pumps I soon realized I had in my garage a P185 high output steering pump! and the pump I had installed was a regular one made for a smaller vehicle!

I should have taken a pic but didn't, the way you can tell is the end cap that holds all the guts, pump veins and whatnot was convex where the one I had installed was concave. you could clearly see the internals in the pump I had in the garage were larger. only problem was the flow and relief valve in it was smaller than the pump I had put in the truck. There are several forum threads in the jeep rock crawler forums on the pressure / flow relief valves in these pumps. you can take the but end of a drill bit to check the flow port size in the valve, also adjust the pressure by the shims in the valve. the one on the high output pump was 9/64" and the one on the other was slightly over 5/32" but not quite 11/64", also the high output pump had more shims making it push at a lower pressure.

This just goes to show when you buy parts from these chain auto parts stores, they come from mfg's and rebuilders that tend to mix and match parts just throwing them together, A1 cardone is one of the major ones.

so here's what I did... I put the high output pump in the reservoir and used the larger valving from the pump I had in the truck on it. installed the pump in the truck, filled it up and took it for a drive.

And would you believe I think I just solved all the issues here! steering was much smoother, no starving noises, and the fluid temp took a good long drive before it topped out at around 165 degrees. I drove all over town, hit some of the main roads, went into the city blocks turning up and down different streets and all seemed smooth. I was out driving around for maybe 45 minutes to an hour before I came back home calling it good!

I guess I had gathered enough parts from these chain auto parts stores dealing with this over the course of a year or more to finally put together the right combination that works for this truck!

This just goes to show, when we have to replace something that breaks on our rigs, wherever you get your parts at, make dam sure it's the right one and not some thrown together part, rebuilt or new.

 

[MrMarty51]

Maybe You could list the part numbers for all of the steering components and post them in a new thread.
A moderator could then flag it as a sticky so it would remain visible.