Amazing 1st Gen Headlamp Upgrade

I'd say go to page 1 and watch the video to get an idea of the process. Overall it was pretty simple.
Passenger side access was a little tight, but you can take the top off the airbox top for better access.

They fit right in like a normal bulb does, you just have to use needle nose pliers to remove the inner reflector first.
There really isn't too much else to it. Scroll through this thread and you'll see some people report blinkers not working after going LED, due to LEDs using less current. Ends up making things wonky.
But there's an extra dongle thing you can plug in to resolve it.

It's kinda black magic to me, but the point is this is a very plug-and-play project. I did it in 30mins outside in the snow freezing my hands off.

 

I appreciate the reply, and I'm well aware of having to modify/remove the inner reflector. I guess I should have phrased my question differently...Which bulb is the go to? Seems since the beginning of this thread, the original CO Light projectors have been discontinued, and in reading more, the newer replacements sound a bit dodgy.

 

I'd be interested to hear from a larger sample size about people's experience with the fans on these. How common is it for them to fail? Obviously `shifty knows his stuff, and if it wasn't for his warning about fans, I would have never considered avoiding them. It's possible the newer model Y6 with a fan is a perfectly good, long lasting headlight. I don't know...

Looks like the Y7 is the only fanless model, currently. I kept mine as backups. I love the idea. But the fact that they cycled through the different colors just from turning my high beams on & off was a deal-breaker for me. I can make them work if I had to, but they annoyed me. Otherwise they were great. It was just that they cycled through the different colors when I didn't want them to (using high beams) that annoyed me.

 

I'm not sure what people have been buying recently, but the bulbs that I bought look identical to the CO Light Y1 series. These: https://www.led-colight.com/product...ightest-h4-9003-lhd-projector-headlight-bulbs

I've had mine in my truck for more than a year and a half now, and they still work great. I purchased mine off of Amazon, sold under the BraveWay name, but as far as I can tell they are identical to the CO Light Y1's. They're likely from the same manufacturer in china.

I believe the Y6's work fine but they have small cooling fans instead of large heatsinks, which is another failure point.

 

Thank you!

 

This is a DEFINITE no go for me. Looks like fans are the only option.

 

I wonder if you use a relay upgrade harness and change from ground switched headlamp wiring to 12v switched if it would stop that color change.

Or maybe it just doesn't matter.

 

I don't know! My electrical knowledge is patchy. At best. I understand there's something with our trucks that isn't the case with every truck, in how our headlights work. They actually turn off for a fraction of a second when going from high beam to low beam? Is that correct? The way you get the Y7 to change colors is by turning the headlights on & off till you hit the color you want. So if the headlight turns off when switching from low to high...the colors cycle. Someone (maybe you?) brought something like this up months back. If there's a way to change how the headlight works and stop it from turning off when switching from low to high and high to low, the lights wouldn't change color.

It's not something I understand enough to do my own experimenting...I'd need someone to point out what product to try, and I could report back.

 

This might require wiring up your own relays and harness. I haven't looked too deeply into it.

 

oh man didn't realize they were discontinued! I bought my Y6 right from Colight maybe 4 weeks ago?
https://www.led-colight.com/products/y6-mini-projector-6000k-led-headlight-blub-h4-9003-hb2


I think I was looking at the Y12's as an alternative, but I can't remember why I landed on Y6. The website does a pretty poor job of explaining the differences and why you'd want this one vs that one, so I was half expecting to receive something that didn't work.

I can say that the upgrade is pretty stellar (so far). Wipers + headlights really make it feel like a new truck

 

i cant do a projector because the sharp cutoff blocks the hills. My aux beams might not catch the deer (they’re set high enough to always work), but the stock headlights see a bit further, but gently.

 

The Y6 aren't discontinued, they just "upgraded" them with a fan. Can't get a fanless model anymore. I'm guessing yours have fans. I was looking months ago and the Colight site no longer had the fanless model. A few of us found them on Amazonia.

 

Ohhh gotcha. Yeah mine have fans

 

Either way, can't get the Y6 from CO Light. Sold out. I was hoping to find the fanless model.

 

Yeah I noticed that. Sold out.

Here's their comparison chart, grabbed from this page, which is the best explanation you'll find of the differences. Better than nothing...

 

What's your budget? I have the CO lights on one car, morimoto D2s retrofit on the sequoia and morimoto H1 on the Tundra. The D2s is at least 3 times brighter than the CO lights, but way more expensive. I'm itching to find an excuse to go with the morimoto Mled

CO lights are inexpensive and super easy and much better than OEM, but if you have the budget, time and desire (need) for better lights go full retrofit. The process is actually really easy.

 

For me, the Y6 is plenty bright. But...we're stuck with very few options once doing the minor mod to make them work. Of course you can always buy a new aftermarket headlight housing and go back to stock. But for me, now that I'm setup for the Y6, I'm kinda stuck. If they burn out, I'm in the same situation as ATBAV8.

Doing a true retrofit that allows me a variety of modern bulbs and not having to chase discontinued parts is pretty appealing.

 

Wait, what about the Y1? What I have on my truck looks identical to the Y1 and don't have fans.

 

Did you have to install the CANBUS decoder? The Y1 doesn't have fans.

 

I didn't have to install anything else to get it to work on my '00. I did buy a cheap resistor so the high beam indicator and fog lights work, but I didn't need it.

 

I tried this upgrade but the only problem is you cannot aim it where you want, my Tundra has a 2-inch leveling kit and my cut off line is in the trees. People have flashed their headlights at me for this and I recently tried going back to the reflector housing with LEDs but I can't aim them exactly where I want either.

 

There's an adjuster to lower the headlights.

 

What? Where? I didn't see it

 

Yeah, found that one using Search in about 30 seconds.

It may be different between old and newer face styles. Read both replies.

There's a copy of the service manual in the community megathread. You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't read the first two replies of that thread.

 

I see you're the author of that enormous "So you're thinking of buying a first gen Tundra" post.
I actually read that thing a few times over before I bought my 1st gen Tundra 1.5 years ago.

But what I'm talking about are the aftermarket co-light LED projector bulbs. I've looked at the manual and read the box but I'm not finding instructions anywhere on how to aim them down. The factory adjustment screw doesn't work with these.

 

It absolutely does. I adjusted mine several times using the adjustment screws on the housing.

The bulb is locked in place, just like a halogen. There is no other way to adjust the bulb, other than using a ratchet on the back side of the adjuster.

If you have aftermarket housings, cheap ones, those adjustment screws are shit. You may need to use a wrench on the back of the adjuster with the blinker out.

You either mounted the bulb incorrectly, your adjusters are fucked, or you aren’t using the correct length and type of screwdriver, or you aren’t getting the angle right. The latter two are genuinely often the problem. But all four have happened. Repeatedly. To the point you’ll find about 10 other threads like the one I linked using the Search.

I only posted that thread. I didn’t create all the content. I’m not a fucking genius. I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last week, though.

 

My aftermarket housings with Colight mini projectors aimed waaaay the fuck down using the factory adjusters.

 

This is a good picture to highlight one big difference between the earlier-year trucks with metal bumpers and the later year trucks with plastic bumpers: In earlier years, the entire housing pivots up/down. In the later years, the housing stays stationary, there's apparently something mechanical inside the housing that pitches the seat for adjustments.

 

For DC or for the later model AC headlights too?

 

I feel like there may be chatter about it in the thread I linked above. I pitched my 2006 headlights up and down about 4-5 turns, and the front of the headlight housing appeared to remain flush with the blinker. That would suggest the movement is in the bucket, or maybe the aiming on the housing is a different design between years.