Well I have waffled about spending money to fix my 94 Dak...but I guess now by default I'm going to end up fixing it. I finally found a decent front fender without rust (wrong color) and a right side door and hood (right color) that I bought locally cheap...and also the other side door is really nice too and finally tonight...to address my rusted out box (somewhat hidden by wheel flares that I don't like) I found this for sale not far:



Over a year ago I got hit by several deer that popped up out of the ditch while traveling back to Des Moines at night. It's a secluded section of Fed highway 65 that cuts through a preserve and it's dangerous going through there at night if you don't have really good headlights...and arguably the stock Dak was not blessed with good headlights. Fortunately they didn't get far enough in front of the truck to destroy the cooling system and I managed to nurse it back to Des Moines on only one headlight....and then patched it together to make it viable as a winter driver (its primary function).



And so this shows up locally at the Upull....and I decide it's time to fix it up.







Also notice that it's the rare 'sport' front bumper option with the foglights...which is something I'd always wanted too....

And then there's this...



Steve

 

Score!!!!!

 

Ah yes, the Road Rat problem. I'd see about adding some brackets to add two sets of auxiliary lights. Your bumper is a bit nice to drill holes into. One set of powerful white lights for the Deer on dark nights and since you get snow flurries at times a set of yellow fog lamps that won't get lost in the white out during the occasional light snow flurry when the wind is blowing 40 mph and visibility is nearly gone. I got some powerful ones to replace the wimpy factory lights on my '96 Ram. White lights are NOT fog lamps. The factories say they are but they are just more money for no purpose. Yellow ones will at least show up as yellow dots in white out conditions.

 

Planning pretty much all of that....I have some HID pencil beams I intend to install on a bracket, plus I have some H4 headlights I'm going to swap in in place of the plastic aero headlights. I plan to run bulbs with a yellow glass balloon to help with snow and rain, then I'm fitting fog lights in the lower bumper valance and may add an additional high beam H1 headlight in some 'plow lights' that I'll bracket mount too. All of this will be wired on harnesses relayed to direct power.

Steve

 

They are REALLY hard to find but a true "Fog" lamp not only has a yellow beam, it has a specific shape to the beam. Shine it on a wall and the top of the beam will be cut flat. Back in the 70's when I drove a truck we would often modify our headlights with duct tape for a flat top beam. This way we could use our high beams and still not have the glare. That's also what the chrome glare shields you see on some old cars is for. This puts all the light down low along the ground and keeps it from causing glare up high.

 

I agree with you completely, I have been using e-code lamps on any vehicle that will accept them for a long time. They have a much better beam pattern and a sharp cutoff on the top, and using a bulb with a yellow glass balloon really helps to clarify what you're looking at. For several decades now makers have been calling pretty much anything a fog light but that's not really true. Ones with clear lenses are closer to driving lights (accessory lights) vs fog lights that have yellow bulbs.

I've found DOT lamps to be completely unacceptable, especially when they're composite plastic lamps.

Steve

 

I've had my daily driver for about 3 years. I think I've used the factory fog lamps 4 or 5 times. They are just a way to make more money on a sale and they really don't do anything. When a truck I used to have broke in half and I sold it for parts, I pulled the 100 watt dedicated fog lamps I had on it. When I'd turn them on, the neighborhood would turn yellow.

 

I have "fogs" on my old Passat wagon and I use them all the time. I have yellow headlight bulbs in that car too. I like having the lower driving lights (aka fogs) illuminated all he time because it shows me any raccoons or possums running alongside the road...so I can avoid them.

Steve

 

Unless you're in France, yellow headlights aren't really legal. The Motor Code requires headlights to be white. This is what dictates how cars are built. I've never seen anybody ticketed for yellow headlights, but you can be. In Indiana, they are enforcing it because of people replacing their headlights with red, blue and green. Those require a permit to use.

The factory fog lamps on my Mazda are pretty well useless. I see no difference except for the ground about 5 feet in front of the car.

 

There's nothing in the Iowa DOT code that prohibits a yellow / amber bulb from being used as a headlight. There are however prohibitions against red / blue etc....but otherwise there is some latitude to employ non-white lamps but not other colors. You specifically cannot have lamp colors that are reserved for emergency vehicles, hence the police response to blue.

I haven't checked Fed DOT mostly because I don't care about them, they don't really have much jurisdiction anywhere, but my Iowa DOT I checked beforehand to avoid this. I've been running H4 'French' yellow bulbs for over a decade.

And as I said the fog / driving lights illuminate the road to the front / sides of the vehicle where I like the added light...so I use them.

Steve