abc4yew

Hey Guys, My welder Joseph and I fab'd a big bumper starting with an aluminum I beam 5" x 8". We're over half way through but I wanted the lights back on that I lost with the stockr. We found a pair of Hella dual bulb units 2 x 55 watts per 4 x 7 assembly. We used the stock driving light plug and the stock switch to control it. I was worried about the fusing and relay as the units draw twice the current. They are awesome. They cover both ditches from truck to 1000 feet out clear as day. A deer ran out of the woods to cross my path and saw the lights and ran back in. (Probably thought he entered a ball park). I was manually holding the full lights on with the signal stick which was a pain. Came up with the idea to pull off the bulb socket plugs and reverse the high and low beam wires. Now when I pull on the low beams my bright blue low beam indicator comes on. When I'm on the highway and put on the high beams that annoying blue light goes off and I can see everything. I'll share some pix when the work is completed. 2 Hella 2 x 55 watt lights made in Austria for $ 80. plus tax cdn. at Parts for Trucks. KS

Festus

I designed it, my buddy Brent fab'd it up. It takes on the same main profile as the OEM bumper. We had to get a flat piece of aluminum custom bent to our specs to make it happen. The main portion is 13" tall. I believe the OEM is ~12.5".

abc4yew

Festus, Looks great! What do you think of those 2x55watt Hellas, I would like to get the same ones in yellow fog/snow and blue/green rain. A light for all seasons. K.S.

Festus

abc4yew,

If your talking about the lights I got in the bumper now, they're great. The only thing I did is I removed the shipped 55W bulbs and put in 100W. I also rewired them with heavier guage wire to eliminate any resistance from the original wires. Everything is 30A relayed (very important) to get direct feed from the batteries. I use the OE fog light switch to activate the relay on the clear foglights. The OE wiring isn't heavy enough for the power draw to run direct.

Even in the most nasty fog and snow storms up here, while other folks are pullin' over, I still keep going either to the farm or hunting/fishing camp because I can see no problem. Of course I adjust my speed accordingly to road conditions, but visibility doesn't hold me up at all.

My buddy has PIAA fog lights. He thought paying $500 for a set of them would be worth it. Until he rode with me in a blizzard. He said there wasn't a comparison and is contemplating selling his PIAA's. I can't say either way as I have never owned a set of PIAA's. Maybe it's just the way I have these set up - set up is very important too BTW. I keep running what works. And I've run these Hellas on two other trucks. I don't plan on changing, but I do recommend the 100W bulbs. The next time one of my bulbs burns out, I may try to search out 100W Sylvannia Silverstars, if they even make them, and replace all four. I paid ~ $100 for a set of two of my Hellas (Canada).

On edit: You might want to put a relay in your stock wiring before anything starts to melt. If nothing else, you'll lose the resistance in your OE wiring and notice a brighter light.