The journey to better Halogens: Koito H4

[Hoosierman]

This may require a few posts for the photos I've taken...

EDIT: Why Koito? Because while I liked the Hellas, I prefer the IPF 820H over them by a significant margin. Unfortunately, IPF/ARB discontinued those and they are unobtanium. I always wanted to try Koito, so... I ponied up the cash for them.

Okay as alluded to previously: I have finally installed a full headlight upgrade on my BII. Before this, I used IPF 820H on my Comanche, a pair of unknowns (LMC Truck) on my Ranger, and I have used Hellas before on a Cherokee. So I've now worked with three different H4 headlights assembly upgrades to replace the sealed beams. Coming from that angle, it is my opinion that one is better than the others. I will get to that later...

So for the Koito K4s I installed on my 1984 BII, I supplemented with a headlight harness from LMC Truck, and Philips Crystalvision Platinums that I picked up on sale at Menards (they worked very well in the Ranger!!). I sourced the Koitos from BJ's FSJ parts.

For laughs, I included a picture of the two sealed beams that were on the truck. Neither were matching, both were full, and in the picture, you can see one was condensated (that's the one that is up close, the dark spot in the bottom is a pool of water.)

First I cleaned up the headlight flanges (forgot the actual name for them), they cleaned up nicely. Next I painted the headlight buckets because there was no way I was going to do all this and leave them looking sad and rusty. So I used to the last of my glossy VHF black wheel paint on them. I will attach photos of the buckets before and after.

I will also take photos at various times of the evening because night photos alone never do full justice for a headlight, I think.

All in all, I'm not sure if the quality of the LMC truck harness. I noticed if I wiggle the wires where it mates to the original light harness, the lights will flicker (great...). I feel like I needed a few inches of play to get to the driver side headlights, so I wound up grounding that side to the horn bracket (it needed attention anyway).

Anyway, here are early and late evening photos. Here in a little bit, I will post later evening photos and show the beam out to the road.

 

[RobbieD]

Very useful post; thank you.

Question: does the Koito K4s have plastic, or glass, lenses?

 

[Hoosierman]

These lenses are solid freaking glass, baby! And the housing is (I'm betting) aluminum, certainly not plastic. I've heard a lot of manufacturers are moving toward plastic housing even if they keep glass lenses. Koito did not do that with these.

More pics!

Pics 1-5 are low beams, 6 is highs. After that I played with the angle on lows and highs.

EDIT: Apparently the photos aren't arranged in the order I attached them.... Low beams had a bit of an angle to the top cutoff for some reason on the passenger side, high beams look very focused.

 

[Hoosierman]

I should have posted these first: These three pictures are before everything. So these photos are the sealed beams, no harness, no improved grounds, no relays, nothing fancy. Also, I can say it is a bit surreal that the Bronco II is actually significantly larger that the Bronco Sport.

 

[SenorNoob]

So $165 for two housings? Not too bad I guess.

Searching that part number has some $28 a piece on e-bay. (Including shipping from Thailand.) I wonder if they are actually the same?

With For Nissan Big-M TD 86-90 Datsun 720 80-85 Headlight Halogen 2-HRSSB-12E​

 

[Hoosierman]

So $165 for two housings? Not too bad I guess.

Searching that part number has some $28 a piece on e-bay. (Including shipping from Thailand.) I wonder if they are actually the same?

With For Nissan Big-M TD 86-90 Datsun 720 80-85 Headlight Halogen 2-HRSSB-12E​

Definitely not the same. The hardware on the rear of the assembly is completely different,, housing color is different, and perhaps most telling-- the glass lenses says "Phyllis".

 

[RobbieD]

and perhaps most telling-- the glass lenses says "Phyllis".

Ahhh; from the makers of Romex watches!


I don't think the price is too out of line, especially with today's prices.

It's like "Rock, Paper, Scissors": Glass And Metal beats Plastic And Plastic every time. Quality simply costs more.

 

[Hoosierman]

Ahhh; from the makers of Romex watches!


I don't think the price is too out of line, especially with today's prices.

It's like "Rock, Paper, Scissors": Glass And Metal beats Plastic And Plastic every time. Quality simply costs more.

Precisely. I wasn't crazy about the $165 price of admission when I'm used to $100 or less previously. At least shipping was free.