looking to replace my headlights need suggestions

I hamfisted the hold down spring on my original housing and broke the plastic tab that holds the spring on the housing on the passengers side when I went to install some new Sylvannia Silverstars which work great. Therefore I had to get a new headlight housing so the bulb would be secured properly. I used contact cement at the time and it worked.

Anyway, I just called Toyota and ordered a new passenger side housing and then realized I may as well get the driver's side and replace both since polishing is a temporary fix. Both were "fogged" up. Yep, they cost a lot. Almost $400 for both.

Before I installed them I must have put 50 coats of Liquid Glass car polish on them. I didn't count but I spent a couple of months doing it and did skip a day here and there. I'd put a coat on every day for a week (you have to wait at least 4 hours between very thin coats even at room temp) then cure it in the oven. Then another coat for a week every day and then bake them in the oven. On "warm". The oven was at 150 degrees.

Liquid Glass, for anyone that has used it is expensive and it requires heat to cure. It was the first polymer, high tech car wax/polish to hit the market probably 30 years ago now. The more coats the better. It is a polymer coating for your paint but works on plastic, glass or any other hard substrate. It's pretty incredible stuff but a time consuming PIA to apply properly especially with many, many coats. If you live up north even in the summer I highly doubt the sun is hot enough and out long enough to really use Liquid Glass to it's full potential. I wouldn't waste the time polishing my Taco with it where I live. It doesn't get hot enough for long enough. Or I would.

My thought was that if I put this stuff on there and cured it every 7 coats or so it would protect the cheap-assed plastic which should be illegal to use on any headlight and they wouldn't "fog up" and oxidize down the road. We'll see since Liquid Glass even says right on the can that if enough coats are applied and the product is cured with heat it will even stop rock chips on a paint job. That, I don't believe but we'll see how my headlights fair after a winter of being blasted with sand and salt. I'll put on another 50 coats next summer. Or more if I have the time and the sun is out enough because I'm not going to take them out to "cure' them. I broke a tab off of one of my corner lights when I took out the grill the last time. This cheap-assed plastic shit they make the cars out of these days is really made for just one or two installations unless you are "real" damn careful, lucky or just very talented and never in a hurry. I'll be ordering a new corner light one of these days and see if I can get it in there without snapping off something else.

As for right now. With the new Toyota housings in there and the Silverstars I'm a very happy camper. Especially when the brights are on. There is a brighter light above the Silverstar but as the power goes up the longevity goes down and the Silverstars are amazing. Not cheap, either. Silverstars run about $40 if I remember correctly and the ones above them are around $50 at Wal-Mart if I remember correctly. The factory bulbs last almost forever but when you get these higher output lamps don't count on anything more than a year and you probably won't get more than 6 months out of a set of Silverstars if you drive at night all the time. Those above the Silverstars? I "think" they are called Goldstars. I doubt you'd get 3 months out of those if you drove at night all the time.

They are very nice bulbs though. The Silverstars are easily twice what the stock bulbs are. Performance wise. With the new housings and clear lenses they rock. I might try the higher output bulbs in the future but for now the Silverstars do the job quite well and they don't require any modifications. You just put 'em in there. I carry a set of stockers just in case I'm on a long trip and one of the Silverstars burns out.

 

Okay folks, I'm back... I said a while back I was going to post up when I did my harness/housing upgrade. Well, life got in the way (as it usually does), but I finally got around to doing the upgrade, and took a few pics.

Here's what I did (so far).

The harness upgrade mentioned earlier
New CAPA housings with Sylvania bulbs (the same ones I had before)
New corner lights (just because, not really an "upgrade")

Old lights low/hi beam

New Housings with the upgraded harness (NOT the 80W Osram bulbs, though...)

So I haven't done the high output bulbs yet. I figured I'd just try the new housings and harness to see if that was good enough, and then go for the bulbs later if I needed.

The pics aren't that great, but you can see a clear improvement in the cutoff beam. The glare is probably from being only about 10 feet from my garage door (not the 25' as spec'd in properly aiming them). The harness probably didn't do all that much, but it's there if I want to really go for the Osrams.

Enjoy.

 

Thanks for the update.

They look decent. I still haven't re-aimed my lights, and I guess by now I've adjusted to them the way they are. I use my high beams more than I ever used to. I still intend to fix them when we get a warm day.

 

Yeah, decent at this point is what I'd describe it. But really, it's just new housings and some wires. Even still, the cutoff is actually there, unlike the smeared out light I had before. i can definitely tell they are brighter than before I put the new housings in, though. Just haven't had a chance to get out on some dark roads to really see how they work, but honestly I'm not expecting a HUGE advantage. Just that my old lights were so faded and old, anything would be an improvement.

 

On the 2nd gen, the harness reduced voltage drop to stock wattage bulbs by 0.4-0.5v. Looking at graphs for voltage vs output seems to ballpark about a 15% improvement in output with the voltage bump.

 

Yeah, I figure they will be some minor voltage gains just with the harness on the 1st gen too. Wires are wires so it should be the same.

But at least for what I've done so far, the biggest gain is really just having housings that don't scatter the light through old yellowed lenses.