Best headlight halogen light bulb option vs upgrade?

ahh my bad bro.
I bought a set of cheap bulbs long ago and they melted the hell out of the plugs from drawing way more voltage than they were listed. Clearly i'm over-sensitive lol

 

I installed an upgraded wire harness with relays, new Depo housings and Osram halogen bulbs.

Light output is MUCH better than Silverstars with stock wiring and old housings. The beam pattern of the aftermarket Depo housings is mediocre. I will say the LED drop-in users don't like my Hi beams when I flash 'em.

 

This is the real best answer. You don't need all that LED swap BS. Keep this shit simple. Im using these

$10 osram 62204SBP premium off-road super bright H4 headlight bulb vibration-proof technology, yellow

osram 62204SBP bulbs with the cheap harness attachment, going on 4 years now no issues. They have a much brighter-than-standard beam with a nice cutoff. 2 new headlight housings and still the same bulbs. Front-end collision and still the same bulbs. 10/10 can vouch.

 

Do you have to run a new harness to the battery? I'd prefer to avoid more spaghetti under the hood if I can.

 

I've heard a couple of folks on here say they've been happier with the mini projectors output more than any other bulb, including those running bright bulbs and the upgrade harness.

 

Yes. It's incredibly simple though. But if you'd rather disassemble and reconstruct and bake two headlight housings and then buying a boutique LED bulb because you're avoidant of one tube of harness wiring, it sounds like you dont want it the easy way different strokes

 

You don't need to do all that. The miniprojectors, you just pop out the reflector cup and the projector bulbs pop right in. Best I can tell, the output is at least 2x brighter and more focused than any high-power bulb and wire harness is going to get you.

Miniprojectors cost less than the high-power bulbs and harness.

 

No blinding whatsoever - How do I know - no one has flashed me in over 5 years of use - we are talking 4 different vehicles.

They are Identical in shape and size as OEM so yes Plug and Play. Yes they make all types fogs Hi Lo beams and some kits that include all of them for a specific vehicle. Light is bright white shooting further and wider than OEM - alot for some vehicles to make them Safe again - Luck all.

 

how do you take off the reflector without disassemble? Just jigger around in there with a screwdriver and shake the removed piece out of the socket hole?

also, colights i saw were ~$60
Osram+harness= $42

 

doesnt look like the reflector will fit through the socket hole. Is housing disassembly and reassembly easier than I am thinking than the plug-and-play solution I can vouch for?

 

Yes.

It's all covered in this thread: https://www.tundras.com/threads/amazing-1st-gen-headlamp-upgrade.127384/

All headlight upgrades for our trucks are covered in this reply: https://www.tundras.com/posts/3143834/

All of that info is covered in the lighting section of the community megathread: https://www.tundras.com/threads/so-you-wanna-buy-just-bought-a-1st-gen-tundra-eh.115928/

A few people on here were able to get new housing pair for under $50, mini projectors under $30, and be out the door at $80 with new housings and lights. It'll vary from model to model, trucks with the corner teardrop light (parking lights) cost more IIRC. But generally speaking, no backing. Just unscrew that reflector cup, and carefully extract without cracking any of the plastic rim. It took me about 10 minutes per housing to a full retrofit on brand new housings.

 

one of those links says you also need a "grounding mod" although it sounds like many of you aren't doing that.

I guess it's of similar difficulty to swapping to osrams and plugging in a cheap harness. It's still cheaper than mini projectors though although $80 aint too shabby

 

Not to shabby, and I know folks who refuse to make the cutover. It's possible the lifespan on the mini projectors may be as short as 2-3 years, but it also seems like when they fail, the half-ass light output they barf up is still better than a traditional halogen, so ... it's a tough call!

 

^^^ I literally spent about 2 months playing around with this including using the high output osrams. I didn't even bother with pics because the colight still was brighter.

 

The video at least has him taking the headlights out and really going to war with that deflector cup. People are getting that thing out without taking the headlight out?? I’ll admit I didn’t read all 16 pages but I did read a bunch, and didn’t see that.

 

It literally took me under 10 minutes per housing to do the work, and I was taking lots of pics along the way which ate up a couple of minutes, I feel like I covered it fairly well here: https://www.tundras.com/threads/wha...-gen-tundra-today.2558/page-1584#post-3139813

I personally used the tools you see there: Screwdriver to remove the one screw, then held the reflector and cut it with tin snips to reduce its size and slide it out.

The important part, which is clearly warned about in that video, is you CANNOT shove your cutty implements into the hole. Treat it like that Milton Bradley game "Operation". DO NOT break off these two tabs because you bump them with whatever you're cutting with, like dude did in the video. If you do it's not the end of the world, but just avoid it, you're better off.

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