Thought I'd share a little insight on the composite headlights for the 92-95 4Runners.
I've seen a lot of posts where people have retrofit projectors into their housings. They work great, but I didn't want to have a small circle of light in a big rectangular housing. I also couldn't keep driving with the junk the truck came with.
I picked up a set of Depo Crystal Chrome Headlights that are direct replacements for European trucks. The optics and cutoffs are left hand drive with right hand traffic.
I also picked up a set of the GTR Lighting GEN 3 Ultra Series LED H4 Bulbs. They are definitely pricey, but well worth it! The LED chips on the bulbs almost perfectly emulate the filaments in a regular H4 halogen, and they output a ridiculous 1800 effective Lumens per bulb.
So... I can finally see everything, and I'm not blinding oncoming traffic!
I am running the same housings..my cut off is not nearly as well defined, I am running a different set of LED bulbs.
I swapped because housings because the 3 sets of 92-95 housings I had were all faded/hazey
@djelectron
do you have a link to your bulbs. I didn't have much luck searching for them
I am running the same housings..my cut off is not nearly as well defined, I am running a different set of LED bulbs.
I swapped because housings because the 3 sets of 92-95 housings I had were all faded/hazey
@djelectron
do you have a link to your bulbs. I didn't have much luck searching for them
This company has TONS of fantastic info, reviews and legit comparisons about lighting so I chose to buy from them rather than direct from GTR Lighting.
All I had to do was get adapters wire to convert our 9004 connectors to the H4 connectors. The set was $10 on ebay.
Here are some examples of the reviews I was talking about on HR:
2014+ Toyota Tundra LED Headlight Bulbs | Headlight Revolution
15 Brands LED Headlight Bulb Shoot-Out! Which one's the best?
GTR Lighting Gen 3 @ 19:32
Just added to my list of wants. Thanks for the info!
Did you replace the lens assembly because the old ones were cloudy? They look OEM to me.
You're welcome! These are my old housings. I'll get a pic of the new ones on the truck after I get home.
The driver's was a little cloudy, and the passenger side had a broken mounting tab on the back on top. The spring is on the bottom causing it to always aim down.
There were a couple factors in changing them to something new rather than the OEM parts. The 9004 bulbs and parabolic reflectors are just old, crappy tech. The filaments are vertical in those bulbs, and very close to each other. The high beam filament is in focus in the dish, but the low beam is slightly out of focus, up and to the left. That makes the low beam pattern shine down and to the right. Light is scattered all over the place using this reflector whether on low or high beam, especially in combination with the fluted glass lens.
I knew if I wanted better light output I would need a more modern reflector design. I could have retrofitted some HID projectors in my current housings, but I still had the fluted glass to scatter the light. So, new housings were a must. Now the question was bulbs.
I studied and considered The ultimate headlight upgrade (not LED or HID) thread on tacomaworld.com, but didn't want to run HOT, 90w halogens with so many watts drawing on my system, even with a harness upgrade and relay. I knew I wanted LED because of the power savings, and I finally found the GTRs after watching so many awesome and informative videos by Headlight Revolution.
Finally... This was not a cheap thing to do. Between $189 for the housings (which did include a set of clear corners), $10 for the harness adapters, and $239 for the LED bulbs, I'm out $438!
I had seriously considered swapping the grill to the 90-91 style that used the sealed beam headlights.
After that I would have installed a set of JW Speaker 8900 Evolution headlights, but they are $450 a set, before I even change out the grill and buckets.
I do like the look of the newer grill and aero headlights vs. the older style. This option was less than the JW Speakers anyway. I believe it is also cheaper, or about the same, as retrofitting HIDs in after you factor that I would have to buy the clear housings anyway.
All-in-all, I'm really happy with the upgrade. I feel like I got the best possible for the money. And, at the end of the day, $400 in lights is cheap insurance vs. repairing a truck with harder and harder to find parts after hitting an animal on a dark road at night.
Finally... This was not a cheap thing to do. Between $189 for the housings (which did include a set of clear corners), $10 for the harness adapters, and $239 for the LED bulbs, I'm out $438!
I had seriously considered swapping the grill to the 90-91 style that used the sealed beam headlights.
After that I would have installed a set of JW Speaker 8900 Evolution headlights, but they are $450 a set, before I even change out the grill and buckets.
I had the truck lite LED's mounted in my old 81 Trekker. I absolutely loved the output, nice even white light. I accumulated the parts (buckets, grill etc) to mount a similar set in the 94. I tackled it a week or so ago. Mounting the buckets turned out to be more work than i wanted to tackle since I didn't want to half ass it. I had heard from more than one source that it would require swapping the core supports. Not worth it to me.
Returned the headlights and bought a set of the GTR bulbs like you had. Cost was relatively close. I already have the housing like you have.
Should have posted a pic of the cut offs. Here are the low beams.
did you remove the center deflector before you installed the lights? or is this just a matter of me getting the beam pattern adjusted a little better? 4runner headlight by ocdropzone, on Flickr
GTR bulbs came in saturday morning, installed them that afternoon
the usual PITA pulling the grill off etc
Tell me about it. Didn't realize just how annoying my bull bar would be. Had to loosen all the bolts so it would drop forward and down an inch before I could just barely bend and scrape the grill out and then back in after.
did you remove the center deflector before you installed the lights? or is this just a matter of me getting the beam pattern adjusted a little better?
I didn't remove the reflector. I think your pattern is pretty close to mine. I think you're a bit closer to the garage door than in my pic. If you back up a few feet I think yours would be pretty close. Same flat driver's side and same up-angled passenger as you. Plus, my phone shoots in HDR mode. I think that throws off the comparison between ours. I will get a non-HDR shot tonight.
How is the pattern on the road? On mine, I get great light forward and to the sides. What isn't so bright is the first 10 feet or so. Byproduct of no up or down-facing leds I think. My lights far outshine other cars on the road, but their plain old lights are brighter on the pavement from the bumper and out maybe 10-20 feet. Mine do put light there, but not as much. I don't mind tho since all of my light is going to where I need it the most - down the road. Are you seeing the same on the road?
I didn't remove the reflector. I think your pattern is pretty close to mine. I think you're a bit closer to the garage door than in my pic. If you back up a few feet I think yours would be pretty close. Same flat driver's side and same up-angled passenger as you. Plus, my phone shoots in HDR mode. I think that throws off the comparison between ours. I will get a non-HDR shot tonight.
How is the pattern on the road? On mine, I get great light forward and to the sides. What isn't so bright is the first 10 feet or so. Byproduct of no up or down-facing leds I think. My lights far outshine other cars on the road, but their plain old lights are brighter on the pavement from the bumper and out maybe 10-20 feet. Mine do put light there, but not as much. I don't mind tho since all of my light is going to where I need it the most - down the road. Are you seeing the same on the road?
awesome, thanks for the quick response. Output is way better than what I had before, better defined but it was sort of hard to tell because it was raining pretty good on my way to work this morning. Hopefully it will be a little drier on the way home tonight.
Price point was about what I would have had into doing the truck lites again.
Great first impression.
Finally... This was not a cheap thing to do. Between $189 for the housings (which did include a set of clear corners), $10 for the harness adapters, and $239 for the LED bulbs, I'm out $438!
Where did you find the housing? I googled/searched everywhere but I cannot find the bucket, trim, housing, bezel to switch over to 5x7 LEDs.
I tried all those websites, but could not find just the bucket to fit my grille. Looks like I will have to switch to a different grille...?! Would the 89-95 truck grille fit my 4runner, with little to no adjustments? Or what would you recommend?
Linear Mode
