Dreaded headlight aiming 08’ 4Runner

[Bl4ck4rm4]

Sorry guys for beating this dead horse. Before I get jumped, I have read over and over again the posts on this, I feel like I’m missing something.

Last year, I converted to HID lights, cause even after cleaning my head lenes I had difficulty seeing at night. I went with xenonHID’s kit 35w 6000k kit. Looked nice, aimed them, and it was still difficult see. It was like they were aimed too low and the blueish color was not helping. Decided that maybe I should go with a better kit.

Ordered Xenon Depot’s low beam kit, with external power source. 50w with 5000k bulbs. Was an improvement but still dealing with the same issue. Makes me think I’m missing something with the aim.

I got the z form in the headlight from 25ft away. From what I have seen from the postings on here of the factory manual, I got the z centered in the middle over lapping each other for the beam focus. But still looks like I’m aiming too low. I raised the vertical adjustment to just enough get an normal beam distance but really worried that I could be blinding some one. Am I missing something?

For HID’s. Whether in Halogen housing or HID housings should be significantly bright, which I’m not getting.

Any help is appreciated
Thanks


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[Bl4ck4rm4]

Just for clarification, when I mean not bright, imagine driving down. The highway at night, with streetlights lighting up the road, and you can’t tell if your headlights are on.


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[Bl4ck4rm4]

Anyone???

I have 15yr old Sylvania Silverstar sealed beam head lamps in a 36yr car and they are brighter than 2 HID kits I have for this truck.




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[OopsIBrokeIt]

Couple questions:

What headlights did you specifically go with?

If you crouch down in front of the truck and look towards the projector, are they bright? (This is best done with sunglasses on lol)

Are the high beams using the same projector, or a separate bulb?

 

[TLar25]

I always see people complaining about their headlights not being bright enough on these, but I've been super happy with my 2003 other than in heavy rain/snow. Fogs and lows seem to do a good job on mine [emoji2373] idk what bulbs are in them as I haven't had to replace one since I bought the truck 4 years ago. Maybe I'm an outlier? Maybe I have super good night vision?? Sorry I'm no help here, but it sounds like you're doing everything right. Could the projector bulbs be burnt/bad somehow? Bxbuilt LED projectors would probably be a very expensive, but effective solution.

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[Bl4ck4rm4]

Couple questions:

What headlights did you specifically go with?

If you crouch down in front of the truck and look towards the projector, are they bright? (This is best done with sunglasses on lol)

Are the high beams using the same projector, or a separate bulb?

The bulbs I went with are the Xenon Depo low beam HID kit with the extra relay external power kit, has the Morimoto XB 50w ballasts, 5000k bulbs also Morimoto. The housing is the same housing that came with the truck in 2008.

I only did the low beam lights. The high beam lights are still the halogens, same goes with the fog light, which I might use the first kit I have which was XenonHID. 35w kit

When I crouch down, they are bright, but compared say to regular halogens, just a tad brighter than that. The only difference is I was able to drive through lot streets and could still see my headlights are on, I can’t do that now


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[Bl4ck4rm4]

I always see people complaining about their headlights not being bright enough on these, but I've been super happy with my 2003 other than in heavy rain/snow. Fogs and lows seem to do a good job on mine [emoji2373] idk what bulbs are in them as I haven't had to replace one since I bought the truck 4 years ago. Maybe I'm an outlier? Maybe I have super good night vision?? Sorry I'm no help here, but it sounds like you're doing everything right. Could the projector bulbs be burnt/bad somehow? Bxbuilt LED projectors would probably be a very expensive, but effective solution.

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At this point I don’t know what to say. I have an 03 Lexus RX300,about due for a lens cleaning but still on halogens. Even with the slight haze and yellowing I can see the lights. These ,I don’t know if the housing lens is warped somehow, or what. I just have no tale-tell sign the the housings are bad. Plus I have seen enough HID’s and LED’s on the road to know with that I have is not right.


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[earthrealm]

could you post a picture of the lights facing a wall at night from say 10ft and then 25ft, that would help us siolate what the issue is

 

[Bl4ck4rm4]

About to head to bed, got off of night shift, will get them tomorrow


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[slixx1320]

Get some good retrofits in.

 

[riceandpho]

if the lights are aim correctly, depending if your height of projectors is over 38 inches high, do the 3 to 3.5 inch drop at 25 feet.

if the lights are under 38 than do 2.5 to 3 inch.

also your headlight projector bowls might be burned already, putting those 50w hid kits makes it worse since the aftermarket bulbs dont have enough uv coating compared to a real philps and osram bulb.

my thing is to just buy new oem assemblies 420-450 and shipped it to lightwerkz.net and have them do the proper projector retrofit, 150-180 for the parts and 500-800 for labor i think, remember everything went up now, so my prices may be a little low.

i just remember spending over 1200 for my s2000 projector retrofit. really better than my first retrofit that i had sold to a guy, more width and intensity.

 

[Bl4ck4rm4]

if the lights are aim correctly, depending if your height of projectors is over 38 inches high, do the 3 to 3.5 inch drop at 25 feet.

if the lights are under 38 than do 2.5 to 3 inch.

also your headlight projector bowls might be burned already, putting those 50w hid kits makes it worse since the aftermarket bulbs dont have enough uv coating compared to a real philps and osram bulb.

my thing is to just buy new oem assemblies 420-450 and shipped it to lightwerkz.net and have them do the proper projector retrofit, 150-180 for the parts and 500-800 for labor i think, remember everything went up now, so my prices may be a little low.

i just remember spending over 1200 for my s2000 projector retrofit. really better than my first retrofit that i had sold to a guy, more width and intensity.

I certainly want to make sure this isn’t anything I’m doing wrong or the HID, before dropping money on new headlight assemblies.

I’ll get pictures tonight hopefully around 10pm cst. Working OT tonight so I’ll get a chance show everyone what I’m seeing.

I haven’t measured the height from the ground to the projectors, have it pretty well eyeballed. When I did my adjustment is started at 25ft, then fine tuned it at 10ft, rechecked at 25ft. On my way home I stopped along the way checked at 25ft and raised it a little which seemed like 1/2-3/4” higher. It helped but very little.

Here is what I used View attachment Headlights 06-09.pdf

It is for 2006, but should be good for the rest of the 4th gen 4Runners
I did find in our group the one for the 5th gen runner, which is basically identical to the 4th gen
View attachment Headlight Adjustment.pdf

This was the 2012 version, in case people are wandering


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[Bl4ck4rm4]

Here are just day light photos for lens clarity.
This one is of my 4Runner

This one is of my RX300

Different vehicles, but you can see the clarity difference between the two. However the RX300, is still bright with halogens.


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[Berty_K]

Here are just day light photos for lens clarity.View attachment 392520
This one is of my 4Runner
View attachment 392521
This one is of my RX300

Different vehicles, but you can see the clarity difference between the two. However the RX300, is still bright with halogens.


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Pics aren't posting.

If you're willing to put in the work, a bixenon upgrade with proper HID lenses is a HUGE HUGE upgrade. I ran xenon depot's kit with my halogen projectors for ~2 years before upgrading to Morimoto bixenons.

 

[Bl4ck4rm4]

Pics aren't posting.

If you're willing to put in the work, a bixenon upgrade with proper HID lenses is a HUGE HUGE upgrade. I ran xenon depot's kit with my halogen projectors for ~2 years before upgrading to Morimoto bixenons.

To be honest, it might come to that. I would like have liked to have waited if this kit was doing the trick, and just fully upgrade at the time bulbs go bad. But the way things are looking it might be done earlier.

Here’s a question, if you ran the lights for 2 years before upgrading, how was the light output? If you had the lights and fog lights on at night did both lights blend into each other to make it brighter or did you have awkward lighting headlights brighter than fogs or fogs brighter than heads?

Sorry for the pics not loading, Tapatalk, for some reason will only allow me to attach instead of adding photos.


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[Bl4ck4rm4]

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[Bl4ck4rm4]

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[Bl4ck4rm4]

Looks like pictures loaded this time. Two different vehicles but look at the headlight lenses. One is average you can see both hi and lows clearly, The other the highs and lows are are hazy. I know it is comparing apples to oranges here, but the Hazy RX300 even on halogens are brighter and lights up with road without the use of fog lights.


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[Bl4ck4rm4]

@%1;, ok I took measurements, instead of eyeballing it. My height from the ground to mid low beam is 35 1/2 inches. When I went to measure on the flattest surface and 25ft away,I was measuring around 23 inches from the ground to the top line of the z. That was on both sides. So my eyes were slightly off.

I raised them to 32 inches on both sides. The horizontal adjustments looked to be spot on when I checked at 10ft

Here is the 25ft view.

Here is the 10ft

It was the only place at work that I could find that wasn’t obstructed. Ground is level the trailer is not. Just so it don’t through people through a loop.


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[OopsIBrokeIt]

Any improvement out on the road now that they're aimed higher?