New Headlight Assemblies P30 with RELAYS and GE Nighthawks 9004's

[lngfish]

Hello,

One of the major concerns with this 1987 P30 Holdiay Rambler Alumlite was the condition of the composite headlight assemblies. Over the years they had become discolored. I had been told this is because of acid rain and UV from the sun and oxidation.

My main problem was using that snake oil stuff that is supposed to clean them never did much. Another problem is the chassis is a Chevy and the headlight assemblies has Ford written on them so this was confusing to me even if I wanted to change the assemblies.

I was on another RV site and a member there had had help from a fellow Daniel Stern Lighting.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/

I read his site and sent him an email. He replied to me and assisted me in determining what my headlights were and guided me with assistance when needed till I was done completing the project of an upgrade that turned out fantastic.

What this upgrade does is when done correctly, un disturbs OEM wiring yet brings battery voltage pretty much directly to the headlights using 12 gauge wire via all nicely soldered connections, these you will do.

He sells a complete kit without the wiring, I used 60', and in the kit you get 2 quality German Relays and all the needed components to do the job. Kit is quality.

The job is massive labor intensive since you have to refit the new OEM lights with old brackets you will take off old head light assemblies. Most are angle aluminum. Get a paint pen. But light duty work.

I work sort of slow since when I work fast I get no where faster.

If you want a time estimate let me try to do one here:

mmmmmmmmmmmmm

40 hours?

I'm allot better at electrical work than most other things so I was OK doing it but did need a few HELPS along the way.

Anyway what I did was purchase, FORD OEM headlight assemblies. Holiday Rambler used Ford Escort ones for mine. I got one off of Ebay and one from a dealer with assistance of ford.com

I'd read over his site a bit if I were you if you are interested in maybe doing this.

Before I stared I had a total voltage drop loss of 2 Volts to far head light. They use far head light. This is right one. You use ground loss too. It is on the site how to do this.

Anyway the point here is I used his chart to see what amount of Lumens I was loosing before I did this upgrade caused by this voltage drop caused by things like dirty this and that, which I had since I had not touched anything yet, and the small OEM wiring, what gauge I have no idea, but not hunky like what I ended up with the 12 gauge.

So this 2 volt drop indicated about a 40% loss of Lumens, candle power.

So after putting in these headlights for like $250 for both, BTW don't buy the Chinese Knock-offs on Ebay for $90 each. Don't ask me why I was told my Mr. Stern not to!, the relay in, all the 12 gauge wiring in, all the joints soldered, my voltage drop was cut back to just 0.2 volts.

So I had a 2 fold improvement so far. New headlight assemblies.

Just looking at this alone a blind man could see easily your going to get 5-times more light just through the lenses.

NO BRAINER HERE.

The second improvement being the 2 relays. One is for HIGH beam R and L. The other relay is for LOW beam R and L.

I put my relays on the bottom of the battery tray looking at you when you open the front cover the little hatch.

BTW you get fuse holders with kit and super heavy wire. This kit is top-notch!

The 3rd improvement is the 12 gauge wiring.

Here is what you end up with:

What you are doing is just using the OEM wiring the use to Power the lights to now Trigger the RELAYS. This is done with the KIT by PLUGGING into the OLD L and R old wiring harness that use to power the headlights and this now is used to TRIGGER the relays. You can use LF to trigger HIGH or LF to trigger LOW, or any combo. Then you use the other side to Trigger the other relay. What you are doing is just using up the old harness here so it does not get dirt in it.

Key goal is not to disturb OEM wiring and fill the holes on any plugs.

The relays are 30A relays and are run from where ever you want to get good voltage close to battery unfused as you will fuse it. I used a hot post the EM. CH. over to side batteries. MOMENTARY contact contactor. N.O.

My last procedure was to aim the headlights. I did that 2 nights ago. These are mechanical aim so there is no B-B line. All you need is C points and C-C line, and a flat surface to pull up to and back off from. I did it at 12 feet as I did not have 25 feet of flat area here.

Final icing on the cake I installed GE Nighthawk 9004's. Amazon for like $30 a pair.

Honestly my lights are as good as the H4's on one of my other cars.

This is by far the best thing I have done.

Cost about $500. $250 for the headlights and $250 for the rest.

The hardest part to understand is this all can be done with simple principles.

His site is very informative.

For me I can now see 20 times further down the road now!

[Rickf1985]

Good info and great references. My only problem would be justifying the 500.00 bill for headlights I use rarely. I put Silverstar replacements in mine and cleaned up all of the connections and I cab see great. If you do a lot of night driving it is well worth it though.

[lngfish]

Thanks Rick,

I enjoyed doing it too.

Where I live in upstate rural SC it is sort of the beginnings of the mountains but not real mountains yet. There are allot of deer.

They hit you not vise versa!

They had run into our cars.

We have driven this '87 about 25K so far and wanted to drive it in the future seeing better and allot has been at night.

There have been times when I'll be out driving it and I'll sort of do a panic stop, well what you think is one.


These things don't stop on a dime as you know well.

I agree if you don't drive at night not a good idea for you.

I read somewhere some of the upgraded bulbs are actually a step down from OEM and I had the silverstars also before.

That fellow Stern recommended the Nighthawks as a step up.

I'm not saying the Silverstars are a step down if you see good with them but I did read some are.

I just forget all the details.

They do market them well!