Retrofitting H4 Headlights (poor conclusions and wasted effort)

Sealed beam light is a large conical piece of glass, vacuum inside. Heavy. When the bulb goes you replace the entire thing. This is the sort of headlight that the car came with new. Since the glass must withstand a vacuum inside it’s quite thick.

Long ago in Europe they started using a new kind of bulb where the reflector and lens were separate from the bulb. This allows you to replace just the bulb. I don’t know why but the H4 bulbs tend to be brighter than the sealed beam type. A common upgrade for sealed beams is to replace the bulb with an “H4 assembly”, it’s an enclosure that fits the same as a sealed beam.

I did this upgrade on my Porsche and was very impressed with how bright they were (and also liked the European beam pattern which focuses more light on the road).

My left headlight dead, and they’re sort of dim anyway. Wouldn’t it be great to put in some of those bright H4 headlights to replace the stock sealed beams? Bright sealed beam is $15-20. A pair of H4 enclosures and bulbs is $75 and is brighter. Time to upgrade!

I order off Amazon, package arrives in a week. I hurry out after work to install:

7″ H4 Retrofit Kit, includes 2 enclosures, 2 55/60w bulbs, everything you need to install H4 lights on your old vehicle:

I turn on the headlights. It’s the left one that doesn’t work. I take it out only to find…

Oh jeese. These are H4 Headlights, already installed in my car… 🙂

Yeah, you see where it says “H4”?

 

I take it apart, looks fine but the bulb is cloudy. I must just need a new H4 bulb, I don’t need the full retrofit kit!

Tape the box back up, mail it back to Amazon.

Next weekend I stop by OReilly and get a H4 bulb…

H4 Replacement Bulb goes inside the H4 enclosure.

 

Home again I turn on the headlights to see which one is burned out….

Both work fine. I guess it was a loose connection. The light must have started working when I took it apart.

I look more closely. What I thought was “cloudy” was actually a metal piece inside the enclosure:

This isn’t cloudy, it’s a metal shield inside the H4 enclosure.

 

Lesson for the future. Take it apart, clean and inspect before buying a new part.

Oh well, its reasonable to carry a spare bulb. I put it in my tool box:

Tool Box

Brake Lights Don’t Work

Stopped at a light in heavy traffic last week. Guy gets out of his truck, runs up: “Hey! You’re brake lights don’t work!” “Thanks!” I yell back, sincerely.

Dang, wonder why?

Drive truck to san juans the next day. I bring my tester, expecting to spend a few hours to debug and fix.

Beautiful morning I take account of the lighting on the truck. Hmm, quite a bit wrong!

• Parking lights are dead. All of them.
• left reverse light is dead.
• brake lights dead.
• right headlight out.

First I check the fuses, the parking light/dashboard fuse is done. I use the spare and that is “fixed”. I put quotes there because fuses blow for a reason. Probably the bulb sockets are corroded and are arcing, need to rub them down with dielectric grease:

• Dielectric grease is silicon insulating grease. Rub it on the metal to prevent corrosion and electric arcing, the magic of it is that a tight metal connection permits full contact. So non-obvious solution: put an insulator on the connection to improve the connection.

Second, there is a bullshit trailer module still attached to the lighting in the rear. I’ve left it connected for one and only one reason: it has labeled inputs.

• The trailer lighting module takes power from the car to drive lights on a trailer. The trailer has parking lights, brake lights, reverse lights and left/right turn signal lights, so module needs a way to know what to do. The module has 5 “signal” inputs, spliced from the cars wiring. When the car puts power to a bulb the module detects it and powers the corresponding bulb on the trailer. The module is a multi-way switch, where the switching comes from the cars own lighting.
• I call it bullshit because when I first went to drive the truck home from Canada there was a problem with the brake lights. Owner fixed it by cutting a wire to the trailer module, so that module is suspect.

As part of investigating the numerous lighting issues I planned to extract the module from the car, at the same time taking the opportunity to label that rats nest of wiring in the back, made even nicer by the enormous amount of fluid film that I sprayed back there.  First I made labels with paper and clear packing tape. As I clipped each wire from the module I tied the label to the corresponding car wiring with some floral wire. I also took the time to explore the power going to each wire, to verify the labels. Clipping the wires I find that a super ANNOYING wire that trails across the back of the truck is actually a trailer signal wire from the right turn signal, I clip it and stow it in the right wheel well storage compartment.

Module extracted the brakes still didn’t work. I removed the rear light covers and see that the bulbs are all good, except for the left reverse light which is cloudy and burned. Ok, that is easy. I swap the bulb with the parking light bulb and it works fine, so just need another bulb.

Brake lights are still dead though. They are dual filament bulbs, so something else is wrong.

Check the fuse panel and see there is no juice to the brakes at the fuse. That is terrific news, no bad wiring between the dash and the rear brake lights.

Next I trace the brake power line leading from behind the fuse box. It goes to a switch above the brake pedal, and there I see a wire has become detached. It looks like a previous repair soldered the wire to the switch and that solder came free.

It takes some doing to get lighting and soldering iron positioned well, with my head at a funny angle to peer through the dash, but then its 15 seconds with a soldering iron and the wire is attached and the brake lights are at 100%.

Finally I walk around the car with Phillips screwdriver and a bottle of dielectric grease. I remove each bulb, give a quick scrub with a  towel then spooge dielectric grease in there and also on the bulb. Then power up the truck and test all the lights. Everything is perfect now, well except for the headlight and the left reverse light where I need to buy new bulbs.

Yay. That was 90 minutes of time well spent, and the bullshit trailer module is gone too.

Next step:

The headlights are very dim anyway. I could update to better/brighter bulbs but I think I’ll order a Hella H4 upgrade kit.

How Not to Change the Oil

I suppose I was more cautious when I first got the truck. Went to change the oil and was surprised how easy it was. Not a drop spilled.

• Ok, its been 5000km, time to change it again, this time I’ll involve the kids. We take her for a spin, get engine warmed up, then park it.
• We gather the oil change paraphernalia, pan, wrench, new plug washer, oil.
• I align the pan, open the funnel plug, also the air plug, then undo the plug.
• Bam! Out comes the hot oil into the pan, perfect! Except that it didn’t actually land in the hole, it hit the pan. Falling from 2.5 feet it bounces in a fan of hot black oil – all over the side of my head and shoulder. “Gah!!” I cry. “Oww!” My kids look on in amazement, maybe enjoyment. They get me some paper towels so I can contain the mess. Align the hole so it stays exactly in line with the stream of hot oil.
• I suppose last time I was smart enough to keep the hole aligned perfectly. This time I forgot and let nature take its course. Lesson learned!
• Lots of scrubbing to get that motor oil out of my hair, ear, beard, armpit… glad it wasn’t fully up to temp!

So remember, its 2 gallons of hot oil, it’ll come zinging out, you need to catch it and contain it.

• Probably you want to elevate the pan so the oil doesn’t fall 2 feet
• Take care to ensure all the air passages in the pan are open or the oil won’t flow in quickly enough.
• Align the oil entry with the stream so it doesn’t fill the funnel top of the pan.

Used Rotella t6 5w40. Oil was black but no debris. Filter was clean too.

 

Seven Months of Bliss

Well, I’ve not posted for three months. I’ve been busy and quite a bit of time was spent behind the wheel of the truck.

Home From Work with Light Reflecting off Lake.

Here’s a checkpoint of my time with it:

• Got a Yakima Swing Daddy Bike rack off craigslist. Goes into the trailer hitch. No more driving around with a muddy bike in the back. The thing holds 4 bikes if you’re willing to pack them carefully.

Yakima Swingdaddy

 

• Used it to commute in the wet weather. No need to get the Porsche all dirty and wet, I drive this thing instead.
• Drove it all over everywhere. Bike race in eastern Washington, family trips, etc. Reliable and comfortable enough. Family tolerates it.
• Slept in the back on drive that went longer than expected. This thing is actually large enough to stretch out in. Who needs a camper? Lots of headroom too to sit up and get dressed.
• Fuel economy: On long trips I get 23-24mpg. That’s with my foot saying to hell with it and cruising at 2200rpm which is near 65mph. No doubt I could improve the mileage but on long trips the efficiency is not worth my time. I’d rather get there 30 minutes sooner.
• Starting to love the sound of the truck. With no muffler the turbo whine is very noticeable. Bitchin!
• Appreciate being the slow guy in traffic. Actually everything is just fine if you drive a little slower. Take my time on the gear shifts to preserve the syncros.
• Helped two friends move. Wow it does hold a lot of stuff!

We got a new dog. She likes the truck:

Lilly sacked out in the back seat on the way back from the hardware store.

This truck gets a lot of positive comments. I’ll get comments on the Porsche from a very few hard core Porsche nuts, but this land cruiser gets thumbs ups from nearly everyone. Gas station attendants, fellow customers at the gas station, women shopping at the mall. Nearly every neighbor (guy) has come by to ask about it. Thumbs up and cheers from other truck owners. Lots of talk and respect from the mechanics that work on my wife’s Volvo. My Porsche mechanic said it was cool and he wanted one. 3 different people in the ferry line for the san juans. Honestly I am probably approached 2-3 times a week with questions about it, and that’s amazing considering how little time I spend in public.

That said, I’ve got some issues to work out, things to solve before I can invest in a stereo:

• I’m sick of the mismatched tires on the front. They really hurt the handling, bias the truck to the right. Need to get some more Michelins on the front.
• Need to find a way to attach the spare tire carrier to the rear frame.
• Need extended links to attach the front sway bar (the stock sway doesn’t fit because of the lift.)
• Replace or repair cigarette lighter, kids messed with it and how it has intermittent connection to the phone charger.

On the way to Echo Valley Race. Sleeping in the back in Entiat City Park.