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Headlights

98xjcherokee

NAXJA Forum User
Hey Guys I'm looking to upgrade the Headlights on my rig.Can anyone point me in the right direction as far as upgrades maybe even some pics?? I seen an 98 like mine today that had Blue head lighting look pretty slick.

Thanks for any input
 
Head light harness and silver stars did me good. I then did hella housings and 80/120w picas. Love it while it lasted. Smashed a branch, headlight cracked, got a little water in and killed the bulb. It wasn't worth the money for me to do it again so the silver stars went back in and are more than enough.

I now run a waggy clip, the light sucks lol. But that and a set of ip686s work well. Looking into a harness and better lights for the waggy clip as well.
 
I've got some IPF housing, 80/110w bulbs and 10ga relay harnesses. All I can say is EPIC!

I use the stock harness to "trigger" the high and low relays. I've got an accessory fuse panel to run the extra stuff. It works great. I'll go snap some pictures of my setup today when I head to the shop. I'm thinking that with all the wiring, connectors, relays, housings and bulbs I'm out about $120ish. The improvement was huge and completely worth it. Properly adjusted I don't get flashed on the highway either.
 
This is the best summation I've ever seen.

Originally Posted by xjsnake http://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/headlights-151196/index2/ - post2069179
viewpost.gif
http://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/headlights-151196/index2/ - post2069179
Upgraded headlights the legal (ish) way...

1) Get a new headlight harness.

You can make your own
http://www.go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoHeadlightLoom.htm

Or you can buy one:
http://www.eautoworks.com/Putco-H4--...s-PRD7540.aspx

The eautoworks harnesses used to be quite cheap until everyone on this forum started recommending them and the price was raised accordingly.

You can pick them up for $29.99 here
http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/csd/full.aspx?Page=48 part number 36-3580. It says it fits a chevy blazer but it's the same as the eautoworks harness and I'm running the LMC harness in my XJ.

There are other more expensive options for pre-made harnesses but I'm not super familiar with those.

2) Upgrade to H4 housings

There are two types of regulations pertaining to headlight housings. There are DOT approved housings which are legal in the US and there are Ecode lights which are European housings and aren't legal in the US although many people use them as they are considered superior housings due to the light pattern.

DOT
Rampage
http://www.quadratec.com/products/97009_501.htm
IPF
http://www.quadratec.com/products/97017_1600.htm
Delta
http://www.quadratec.com/products/97009_121.htm
Hella
http://www.quadratec.com/products/97009_02.htm

Ecode
Autopals (look on ebay for Autopal 200mm H4 housing)
Hella
http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=744
Cibie
http://www.clearcorners.com/products/cibie/

Personally I won't buy housings that have plastic lenses, I much prefer glass but your mileage may vary.

3) Get good bulbs

Some of the above housings come with bulbs included with them. I tend not to recommend bulbs as the choices are extremely vast and everyone has their own preferences as to color and wattage.

4) Aim your headlights properly!

I can't say enough how much improperly aimed headlights annoy me on the road plus you are wasting all that time and effort to upgrade the lighting if you don't aim the light where it does the most good...
http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=78017

5) On HID Lights

I do not recommend HID's for use in XJ's... People will show links to cheap HID kits and "Projectors" off of ebay and other sites which will give you a lot of light and will also throw a lot of light in all directions making you very visible to police and possibly blinding other drivers.


Read
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...nversions.html for a well written description of the problems with HID kits.

When using HID's you need a true projector housing. I'm sure people will chime in and say they run HID's and ebay housings and have had no problems but I'm describing the legal (ish) way.

If you want to go down the road of HID's, take a look at what true projector housings cost
http://www.kbcarstuff.com/6054-200mm...-p/xd-6054.htm
http://www.brightheadlights.com/hid-upcoming.htm
or you can buy the projectors and retrofit them into existing housings if you are so inclined:
http://www.cherokeeforum.com/f58/hea...9/#post1391556

There are a myriad of options available to consumers with the limiting factor being cost. One can spend under $100 and have significantly upgraded their lighting or they can spend $1000 and upgrade their lighting more. It's all in how much money you want to spend.

For those wanting to do some of these upgrades but not necessarily all I would do them in the following order:
1) Headlight Harness (major improvement even with sealed beams)
2) Housings and Associated Bulbs
3) Hid and Projectors (Cost prohibitive to do correctly)


For installation of the harness and housings see this excellent write up:
http://www.cherokeeforum.com/f59/my-h4-upgrade-114440/

Disclaimer: Always check your local and state laws as some places have more stringent lighting laws than others... I am in no way associated with any of the above companies and none of what I say should be taken as the absolute truth or only way to do things. Flame on...
 
Cruiser's write up is great. Helped me out when I did my upgrade. I used the putco harnes with the rampage housings. I got them both from Amazon it was the best price I found. Sorry I don't have any pics my camera craped out.
 
Cruiser’s Headlight Upgrade Harness Instructions
 
It's easy to install a supplemental headlight harness.

From the factory, the voltage to the headlight bulbs travels from the battery, inside the cabin, to the headlamp switch, and then back out to the lamps via undersized wire. It's not uncommon to find only 10.5 volts at the lamps.

The supplemental harness is installed so that it provides battery voltage to the lamps and is just triggered by the factory wiring. The result is about 30% brighter headlamps and headlight switches that don't melt and burn out.
 
 
Absolutely plug and play. Remove grille and headlamp bulbs. I fed my harnesses from the passenger side starting between the battery and the back of the headlamp housing, over to the driver side. Plug the driver side bulb into the new harness. Attach the new harness's ground wire under one of the small bolts on the radiator support after scraping the paint off under it. Attach the harness to the existing harness behind the grille working toward the passenger side. . Plug the new harness plug into passenger headlamp. Plug original headlamp plug into receptacle on new harness. Attach the ground for the passenger side just like you did the driver side under a radiator support bolt. Attach relays with provided bracket on the passenger side inner fender. Connect power wires to battery.
Revised 12/10/2012
 
Head light harness and silver stars did me good. I then did hella housings and 80/120w picas. Love it while it lasted. Smashed a branch, headlight cracked, got a little water in and killed the bulb. It wasn't worth the money for me to do it again so the silver stars went back in and are more than enough.

I now run a waggy clip, the light sucks lol. But that and a set of ip686s work well. Looking into a harness and better lights for the waggy clip as well.

Definitely let us know about the Waggy headlight upgrades... The light output sucks!
 
This is the best summation I've ever seen.

Originally Posted by xjsnake http://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/headlights-151196/index2/ - post2069179
viewpost.gif
http://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/headlights-151196/index2/ - post2069179
Upgraded headlights the legal (ish) way...

1) Get a new headlight harness.

You can make your own
http://www.go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoHeadlightLoom.htm

Or you can buy one:
http://www.eautoworks.com/Putco-H4--...s-PRD7540.aspx

The eautoworks harnesses used to be quite cheap until everyone on this forum started recommending them and the price was raised accordingly.

You can pick them up for $29.99 here
http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/csd/full.aspx?Page=48 part number 36-3580. It says it fits a chevy blazer but it's the same as the eautoworks harness and I'm running the LMC harness in my XJ.

There are other more expensive options for pre-made harnesses but I'm not super familiar with those.

2) Upgrade to H4 housings

There are two types of regulations pertaining to headlight housings. There are DOT approved housings which are legal in the US and there are Ecode lights which are European housings and aren't legal in the US although many people use them as they are considered superior housings due to the light pattern.

DOT
Rampage
http://www.quadratec.com/products/97009_501.htm
IPF
http://www.quadratec.com/products/97017_1600.htm
Delta
http://www.quadratec.com/products/97009_121.htm
Hella
http://www.quadratec.com/products/97009_02.htm

Ecode
Autopals (look on ebay for Autopal 200mm H4 housing)
Hella
http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=744
Cibie
http://www.clearcorners.com/products/cibie/

Personally I won't buy housings that have plastic lenses, I much prefer glass but your mileage may vary.

3) Get good bulbs

Some of the above housings come with bulbs included with them. I tend not to recommend bulbs as the choices are extremely vast and everyone has their own preferences as to color and wattage.

4) Aim your headlights properly!

I can't say enough how much improperly aimed headlights annoy me on the road plus you are wasting all that time and effort to upgrade the lighting if you don't aim the light where it does the most good...
http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=78017

5) On HID Lights

I do not recommend HID's for use in XJ's... People will show links to cheap HID kits and "Projectors" off of ebay and other sites which will give you a lot of light and will also throw a lot of light in all directions making you very visible to police and possibly blinding other drivers.


Read
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...nversions.html for a well written description of the problems with HID kits.

When using HID's you need a true projector housing. I'm sure people will chime in and say they run HID's and ebay housings and have had no problems but I'm describing the legal (ish) way.

If you want to go down the road of HID's, take a look at what true projector housings cost
http://www.kbcarstuff.com/6054-200mm...-p/xd-6054.htm
http://www.brightheadlights.com/hid-upcoming.htm
or you can buy the projectors and retrofit them into existing housings if you are so inclined:
http://www.cherokeeforum.com/f58/hea...9/#post1391556

There are a myriad of options available to consumers with the limiting factor being cost. One can spend under $100 and have significantly upgraded their lighting or they can spend $1000 and upgrade their lighting more. It's all in how much money you want to spend.

For those wanting to do some of these upgrades but not necessarily all I would do them in the following order:
1) Headlight Harness (major improvement even with sealed beams)
2) Housings and Associated Bulbs
3) Hid and Projectors (Cost prohibitive to do correctly)


For installation of the harness and housings see this excellent write up:
http://www.cherokeeforum.com/f59/my-h4-upgrade-114440/

Disclaimer: Always check your local and state laws as some places have more stringent lighting laws than others... I am in no way associated with any of the above companies and none of what I say should be taken as the absolute truth or only way to do things. Flame on...

Thanks for the great write up Cruiser. Looks like the amazon harness with the Hella H4 bulbs are what im looking for. Looks easy enough to install. Finished product is by far better then stock..
 
I have rampage housings with HIDs 6k 55w
raharemu.jpg
 
In your search for headlight upgrades Rocky Road Outfitters will likely come up. I highly recommend you steer clear of them. I had a terrible experience purchasing a H4 kit through them. After months of dealing with the F'd up order I did some internet searches and found I was far from the first to have major issues with them.

BTW, I am very happy with the H4 upgrade. Before I installed the H4's I upgraded the wiring and tested the stock lights...just the wiring upgrade alone made a huge difference in my case
 
IPF housings are #1 in my book. If you can afford it, do it. The Hella housings are good as well. I would recommend something WHITE, as the wannabe hid blue crap is annoying as hell.
And xHOWEVER MANY on the headlight harness upgrade. EAutoworks, LMCtruck or DIY.
 
I love my IPF housings. Pretty cheap too. HID are fine, but watch your color temp. Something around 4000-4100k is great. Nice and white. Good reflectivity to get you max visibility. Blue, purple, yellow all reflect less light and actually make it harder to see. I prefer halogen in my vehicles. or LED, I have a rigid ind light in my dirt bike. Those kick ass. I have some cheap walmart fog lights to make into rock lights this week. Put a relay in the engine compartment and I already have a fuse holder available. Simply drop a blade atc and off I go.

I got bug for wiring when I built my own 1/0 battery cables. I got the idea for the aux fuse panel because it is super easy. It has its own 100amp fuse, and the panel is rated for 100 amps. the 1/0 will flow wayyy more than 100 amps at 2' length 100% duty. Now everything is clean, and problems are easy to find. I really should start clipping the ends of my zip ties though... oh well.
 
Cruiser's write up is great. Helped me out when I did my upgrade. I used the putco harnes with the rampage housings. I got them both from Amazon it was the best price I found. Sorry I don't have any pics my camera craped out.

Do you happen to recall the part number for the Putco Harness you got off Amazon? I see one for an H4, but it's all rolled up and I can't tell what's what. Thanks.
 
H4 harness is correct. So, most likely it is correct one. If all else fails you can return it. But pretty sure that will work.
 
H4 harness is correct. So, most likely it is correct one. If all else fails you can return it. But pretty sure that will work.

Some of the reviews on amazon have me scared to try the putco harness. are the connections really that bad on it?
 
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