Amazing 1st Gen Headlamp Upgrade

Mine did same as @KNABORES truck. I settled on aiming too high but surprisingly never get flashed.

 

Just ordered some TYC headlight assemblies, shipped for under $90--I don't mean to pile on shifty, but I can't believe these ACs are only $35 each and the '06 ones he paid for were about $80 a piece. And that was a couple years ago. Probably because it's a teardrop unit?

As mentioned earlier--I was also wondering if anyone else has tried any of CO light's newer models(Y9,Y12, Y16)? Seems like most only have the y6s, 7, or 1. I'm about to just pull the trigger on the Y16's since they claim to be the brightest/latest and greatest and also have the highest w output based on the chart above. The fans/fanless isn't a huge issue for me and I'm not a fan (no pun) of the y7 color cycling process.

 

Keep us updated.I'm about to pull the trigger on this project and haven't seen much on the Y16. I'm curious before I pull the trigger on the Y1.

 

Will do, the Y16s ended up being $50. Free shipping and 15% promo code at checkout-- not bad at all. Rockauto already shipped the headlamps so looks like those will get here well before. I'll do the old reflector removal in the meantime. Currently, my stock headlights are horrific...and the lamps are fogged up, the only saving grace for light visibility are really my fog lights.

 

I'm definitely interested to see what you think of the Y16s. I'm happy with my Y6, but, you know...

 

I'll be sure to update here along the way. Can't wait to see for myself.

This comes with the canbus decoder, is that the same thing as the resistors mentioned previously that will fix the fog light/high beams issue or are those 2 separate things?

 

Oh, now we're calling the optical abberation, or defect if you prefer, a "blue tinted cutoff line", eh? Man, their marketing team is working overtime.

 

That is pretty funny.

Dblock as far as I remember not everyone has the issues you mention. I didn't. Aside from having to modify the headlight housing, everything was plug & play. But I have no idea what the previous owner did to the truck. It already had LED headlights when I bought it. But they were the kind that blind everyone else without providing good vision for me.

Anyway what I remember from reading through this thread last year was some people have issues, some don't.

 

Haha, yeah I was hoping by this iteration that cutoff line would've been gone. Their product pages are pretty lengthy, but most of it sounds like filler like when I used to write pappers in school...I've noticed a few contradictions on some of them even just paragraphs apart. For example, at one point they claim to last over 50,000hrs then down the page it says only 30,000hrs--pretty sure they just be making shit up. But if it weren't for real life users who can attest to them being a solid, cost effective option, I probably would've just went with any random Chinese brand that had the most reviews on the Amazonias.

 

Got ya, I'm just wondering if the resistors are being used in conjunction with the provided canbus decoder for those that had that issue? Or if the canbus decoder is the same thing as the resistors that people bought online themselves and that CO light decided to finally include after so many have had that problem.

 

According to the CoLight article linked below, their CanBus/Combination decoder contains resistor, capacitor and circuit board to help with the lower resistance of LED on a system that designed for higher resistance of halogen bulbs.

https://www.led-colight.com/blogs/news/what-is-canbus-why-you-need-it

Your 02 possibly only needed resistors but the decoder came with purchase….gravy !!

 

Good pull, and awesome--I can't wait to get this done. The fogged up OEM headlamps are looking terrible and I honestly don't really care to do a restoration. Getting these small upgrades/improvements done is all part of the fun

 

Y16s installed in TYC assemblies. Will throw them in tomorrow, hopefully won't need to adjust much--kinda just threw the leds in and hoping for the best. Pictures of the mangled reflector still in the assembly(used needle nose to compress each side one side at a time, using needle nose only seems effective if the reflector is still screwed on)

 

Welp, turned out that I'll need resistors. My highs' and fog lights don't work with these as others have stated as well. Also one of my side markers was a complete PITA to get off and even slightly pulling on it or trying to use a plastic trim removal tool on it caused the whole cover to comepletely off. Needed to order replacements anyways. But the biggest problem is...rusted bolts. All were rusted and froze together and broke clean off on the passenger side. Its the bolt part (male part that is part of the frame), the headlight assembly is only being held on by the Phillips head screw. How can i fix this, is welding the only option?

 

I'd see if I could get to the back side of where those studs are mounted. If yes, I'd drill holes where the studs are and use regular bolts to pass through the holes. If you can't get to the back side to tighten them down, then I'd probably still do the same thing and just tack weld the bolt in place once passed through from the back side. They don't require a lot of torque, so you might just be able to epoxy them into place... all you need is for them to not turn while tightening down after installing the headlight housing.

 

Yeah i think drilling through might be the best thing to do. They aren't removable bolts anyway and are a part of the larger metal piece thats attached to the body/frame. Drilling them out and using regular 10mm bolts to replace them is what I'm thinking so far. It might pretty difficult to get a drill in under there though

 

I snapped all of my headlight bolts as well. I drilled them out and replaced them with M6 bolts and nuts. It was a bit annoying to get around the back to get the bolts through the holes. You could probably drill out the snapped bolts and use a large self tapping screw, or maybe even drill them and tap a larger thread size into them.

 

Hm glad to know I'm not the only one that experienced this. And feel better about tackling this knowing you were able to get it done this way too. Did you have to use any type of lube or cooling liquid for a drill bit? Or did you just find a more durable bit slightly smaller in diameter than the bolts and have at it

 

I honestly don’t remember, it was probably close to four years ago. It’s not a crazy precision operation, as long as you can get a hole around where the bolt was you should be fine. You could use WD40 or similar to cool the drill bit when drilling.

 

I would definitely get new, good drill bit, go at slow rpm, and use oil. Most of my trouble drilling out bolts (which is enough of a pain even when you do it right) is going too fast and not using oil. Too fast and too hot just hardens the bolt you're trying to drill through.

 

Sounds good, I'll try this out today or within the next couple of days. Will stop by home depot and grab drill bits rated for metal and another can of wd-40, m6 bolts w/nuts. New side markers and resistors should be in today as well, ready to get this knocked out

 

Drilled the bolts out, put in 1/4 inch replacements. Also installed the new resistors (in conjunction with the already supplied ones from CO light) which solved typical light issues. I have noticed these side markers dont seem to click or snap in place into the headlight assemblies like the oem ones do with the little side clip/latch. Feels a bit filmsy and has some play if I push on it.

Also, not sure what's going on with the passenger side light, it's not nearly as bright as the driver side in lo/regular setting. However it seems fine when highbeams are on. Anyone have this happen? I'll go back in and disconnect and reconnect to make sure it's on solid enough but seems odd.

 

Nice work.

Yeah there's definitely something going on with the passenger light. No idea if it's a connection, or just the reality of mass-produced disposable products.

 

You got a defective light. Contact the manufacturer. Share both pics. They should send a new one and/or new pair, ideally, to make up for the f-up.

The output looks nearly identical to what @RUSTYNUTS had when one of his low beam chips burnt up.

 

I was going to disconnect and reconnect to see if maybe i didnt push in the resistors in enough or something or need to rotate the led itself, etc, but you're right I'll contact colight to get the ball rolling. Also might mention to them that I had to buy extra resistors to see if they'll do anything because their's does nothing.

 

They typically don't send resistors. They typically come with drivers, not resistors.

 

Well I bit the bullet and splurged on some some retrofits; Morimoto Mini DS5 5.0s. Looking forward to the installation process.

Just got a pair of TYC *non CAPA* housings I may throw them in as RA still doesn’t have stock on CAPA housings.

Thinking I’ll start up a build thread to show the process and what not.

 

Ah ok, looks like COlight refers to them as decoders/drivers. I wasn't sure if they were resistors or supposed to do the same thing as them. Regardless, I tried removing the passenger side resistor this afternoon, just turned them on now to test and looks like its working as it should. Possible the connection wasn't in good enough or that the resistor was causing the issue. Either way, glad I got it working now and just need to adjust them when I have time to mess around with it.

 

You can actually halfass dial it in to about the right level sitting in that exact spot of this parking lot, facing those cars, from roughly that distance.

Basically, you need to make sure you're not blinding from the front or the rear. If the vehicle in front of you is at normal ride height (i.e. not lowered), your headlights should cut off right about the top of their trunk. Any higher than that, and you'll blast their rearview mirror and blind the fuck outta them. And because the driver's head is usually about the same height as the rearview mirror on the windshield, if you're shining high enough to hit the rearview from behind, you're blinding the shit out of them from the front. Get yourself to about the red line in the photo below. Or, for reference, after my install I went a little overboard and was a hair too low as you see in this pic. Ideally, you want to be higher than that, but lower than where you are.

​

 

Thank you for the tip. I'll probably try this out tonight. I think you're right about them being too high currently since you can't even see any sign of the cutoff/purple line in that picture (maybe getting a bit closer to the rear of another vehicle or a wall would also help). I saw the "newb adjustment" thread on this topic and the diagram from the FSM but I'm not interested in trying all that out, I'll stick with this method as it seems more straightforward with similar results. Side note: yours look pretty perfectly dialed in by the way.