Couple questions-Am I the only one with a 1st gen dakota that has nothing but issues while driving at night because the headlights are horrible?

I've cleaned and polished them so they look new, have the best Silverstar Sylvania bulbs you can buy, have no moisture in the lenses, and the insides are clean. I did however just pickup universal bulbs that I knew would work for my truck but should I of gotten exact replacements of Sylvania for my specific truck?

If anyone else has any ideas or suggestions they would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

I wonder if you have a bad connection somewhere in the wiring? Is there a way to connect a wire from the battery to the lead of the light to see if its brighter?

 

I just traded one of my dirtbikes to a local welder to make me a roll bar for the bed. Once that finally gets made, I will be installing the brightest available set of flood lights ontop... cause yeah I'm sick of running over poor little armadillos. Our headlights are pretty lame.

 

the way i fixed myne was to cut the ground and high beam wires from the cab. i then grounded them to the body next to the pcm. after that i put a relay in to shoot bat+ to the high beams and driving lights (this way there is no switch in the cab and they work with the high beams) and the control ckt on my relay is wired to factory harness out of the cab for high beam control. the driving lights i got are the wally mart $20 specials. they are surprisngly bright and supplement the high beams perfectly for back road driving. pretty good range on em to. next ill do the same for the low beams and use foglights. to hard to see the road when it rains for my likeing. pretty easy to do that though. took me about 30 mins to intall and aim.

 

Got any pics of this? Sounds interesting.

 

get some HID headlights... low beams only are about $75 and both Hi and Low are about $150. I am about to get some installed, and I also use my 4 130 watt KC daylighters at night!

 

not a bad idea, wouldn't work for us up here as we have to have them covered up when on the roads. (certain wattage are allowed not sure the allowable is tho.)

 

Mine are so crappy, I leave them on hi all the time and have never been flashed by oncoming drivers.

 

I'm currently debating switching to an 80/100w bulb since most of the driving I do is at night but I know I'll have to upgrade the wiring and at the moment I'm feeling lazy.

 

Thanks guy's for the ideas.

So Festerw, you need to upgrade the wiring if you want to use a 75 or 100watt bulb so it doesn't burn out the wiring?

woodbutcher5691, yeah I came home from a friends the night before last and probably spent a good 25 miles on the highway with my high beams on the entire time and not a single person flashed their lights at me.

oxygen454, I'll have to check that out when I get a new tester, the current one is burnt out.

I'd like to get some driving lights too sometime, hopefully I can find a nice bright set that fit nicely in the front spoiler.

I do have one tip for you guys that if there's no oncoming cars you can hold the high/low beam lever in just before it turns the high beams on and get both high and low beams at the same time. What I found out about a year ago though is that you can also get high and low beams if after you turn on the high beams, you slowly and carefully pull the lever out and toward you and if done right it will also turn on your low beams so that both high and low beams are on at the same time and you can then release the lever and they will stay on. That can also be done by after the high beams are already on, flicking the lever a few times before it gets to the click that turns off the high beams and if done right it will also make both high and low beams stay on at the same time. It seems that the way those work is there's something inside that switch&lever that will catch and stay on when it was only made to switch between high and low & to your flash lights at other drivers.