LED Headlights

[ChimpOnGas]

Bassfiend229hp said:

Just ordered up a pair of what are stated as being RHD E-marked genuine Truck-Lites ...

Gulp!

Phil

Gulp indeed mate... what was the damage?

Whatever the cost I'd feel confident your Mk3 conversion using proper CE marked RHD LED Truck-lites in place of the usual Mk1 Golf units will deliver unbeatable Chimaera headlights.

The cheapest I could find a UK seller offering a set of RHD Truck-lite originals (that definitely weren't fakes) was £390.00, if you look at what the Yanks pay in the USA (£230.00 a set) that's still a bit of a rip-off. I looked at bringing them in from the States myself but it got messy, I needed to find someone in the USA who was happy to sell RHD versions, this wasn't that tricky but they all needed to place a special order with the manufacturer, unfortunately for me it turned out Truck-lite quite rightly wanted to protect their UK agents so weren't that keen to send one of their US agents a set of RHD lights.

I also needed to factor in import duty which in my experience always seems to end with me paying the Post Office a painful 25%, so assuming I could get the RHD set from a US dealer the total was looking to be around £300 with shipping. So buying the right thing from a UK vendor who already holds RHD sets here in the UK seemed the most logical option rather than trying to be clever and save the £90.

I've promised myself when the price has dropped a bit I'll stick a set CE marked RHD LED Truck-lite originals in 'Ol Gasbag', indeed as soon as they are £250 a set that's exactly what I'll be doing.

What did you pay Phil?

Did you get a super duper deal we all need to know about?

Cheers, Dave

[Bassfiend229hp]

ChimpOnGas said:

Gulp indeed mate... what was the damage?

Whatever the cost I'd feel confident your Mk3 conversion using proper CE marked RHD LED Truck-lites in place of the usual Mk1 Golf units will deliver unbeatable Chimaera headlights.

The cheapest I could find a UK seller offering a set of RHD Truck-lite originals (that definitely weren't fakes) was £390.00, if you look at what the Yanks pay in the USA (£230.00 a set) that's still a bit of a rip-off. I looked at bringing them in from the States myself but it got messy, I needed to find someone in the USA who was happy to sell RHD versions, this wasn't that tricky but they all needed to place a special order with the manufacturer, unfortunately for me it turned out Truck-lite quite rightly wanted to protect their UK agents so weren't that keen to send one of their US agents a set of RHD lights.

I also needed to factor in import duty which in my experience always seems to end with me paying the Post Office a painful 25%, so assuming I could get the RHD set from a US dealer the total was looking to be around £300 with shipping. So buying the right thing from a UK vendor who already holds RHD sets here in the UK seemed the most logical option rather than trying to be clever and save the £90.

I've promised myself when the price has dropped a bit I'll stick a set CE marked RHD LED Truck-lite originals in 'Ol Gasbag', indeed as soon as they are £250 a set that's exactly what I'll be doing.

What did you pay Phil?

Did you get a super duper deal we all need to know about?

Cheers, Dave

How close to £250 do you need them to be...?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222000427749

Phil

[ChimpOnGas]

Bassfiend229hp said:

How close to £250 do you need them to be...?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222000427749

Phil

Geeez fella, £290 squids delivered from German Land, and for what looks like the real thang too!!!

That's a rocking good find there mate, super tempting as he hovers over the "buy it now" button!

D

[Bassfiend229hp]

ChimpOnGas said:

Bassfiend229hp said:

How close to £250 do you need them to be...?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222000427749

Phil

Geeez fella, £290 squids delivered from German Land, and for what looks like the real thang too!!!

That's a rocking good find there mate, super tempting as he hovers over the "buy it now" button!

D

It's £100 less than we've seen them for otherwise ... only £40 more than your "£250 and I'll just buy it" and about the same price as you think they'll cost you if you go through the pain of sourcing direct.

They're stated as being genuine, E marked, RHD LH traffic units that are no bloody good to anyone in Germany ...

... so have you hit Buy It Now yet?

(Just had shipping confirmation through - Should be here sometime between Tuesday and Friday next week.)

Phil

Edited by Bassfiend229hp on Thursday 28th January 12:26

[ChimpOnGas]

Bassfiend229hp said:

It's £100 less than we've seen them for otherwise ... only £40 more than your "£250 and I'll just buy it" and about the same price as you think they'll cost you if you go through the pain of sourcing direct.

They're stated as being genuine, E marked, RHD LH traffic units that are no bloody good to anyone in Germany ...

... so have you hit Buy It Now yet?

Phil

No, I want to see how you get on with them first, and given the price is definitely coming down on the Truck-lites as competition builds momentum from the east they may get even cheaper

Saying that if you get what you paid for and genuine RHD Truck-lites turn up you have bagged a very nice deal in the current market, most UK vendors seem to be asking a comedy £500 for a set!!!

At the end of the day I'm confident I've solved the problem with my LP270 driving lights, but I'll still eventually buy a set of Truck-lites at some point. At which point the PIA LP270 driving lights will stay put but adjusted and wired for main beam rather the my current dip beam improving strategy.

Don't forget the the reason the Golf Mk1 units were chosen for the Chimaera Mk3 conversion was because they come with nice integral adjusting rings which makes them a nice easy bolt in option, they are also adjusted from behind the unit which actually makes them ideal for a Mk3 faired setup as you'd never get to the common front adjuster system used on almost all other 7" round headlight assemblies.

The Truck-lites are designed for cars with 7" round headlights like Land Rovers & Jeeps, if you look at these setups they all have the adjuster ring already mounted to the car making them a drop in replacement for these vehicles. This means you will need to find a mounting and adjustment solution for your Truck-lites, this is hardly beyond the wit on man to solve but it's a consideration and an extra cost all the same.

I would look to use the common 7" round headlight bowls that include adjusters and body mounting points all as one unit, back in the day this type of bowl was metal and they would rot out in just a few years, these days you can get good quality plastic bowls that should last indefinitely especially on a Chimaera where the bowl will live away from road spray.

Just keep in mind these type of bowls offer the adjusting screws on the front, headlights in this setup are adjusted by removing a covering trim and then adjusted from the front. This clearly won't work on a Chimaera Mk3 faired headlight setup as there will be zero access, so you'll need to do what TVR did with the Mk1/2 lights and fabricate some form of "wing nut adjust from behind" system.

This sort of thing used in Land Rovers, the Classic Mini and a host of other Brit stuff..





http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/7-HEADLIGHT-HEADLAMP-ADJ...

Buy genuine Wipac plastic units and you should be fine but there will be some fabrication involved, and of course the front facing adjuster issue to solve so you can adjust them from behind.

Once this is all resolved you can prop your Truck-lites in no problem or any other 7" headlight unit for that matter

Edited with correction: Mk1 Golf headlights with their nice integral adjuster/mounting rings are actually adjusted from the front too, so when Surface & Design did my Mk3 conversion they must have come of with an "adjust from rear" system.

Here are the Golf Mk1 7" H4 units so you can see how they look and how the adjusters work, similar but as with all German stuff done better than the way us Brits did it with bowls...





Being H4 straight out of the box with a nice rubber bulb cover, given the proper integral adjuster/mounting rings and the excellent quality of the German made Hella units... you can see exactly why TVR chose Golf Mk1 headlights for the Mk3 Chimaera.

Edited by ChimpOnGas on Thursday 28th January 13:13

[Bassfiend229hp]

ChimpOnGas said:

No, I want to see how you get on with them first, and given the price is definitely coming down on the Truck-lites as competition builds momentum from the east they may get even cheaper

Chicken! :P

ChimpOnGas said:

Saying that if you get what you paid for and genuine RHD Truck-lites turn up you have bagged a very nice deal in the current market, most UK vendors seem to be asking a comedy £500 for a set!!!

Exactly - that was my thinking - and I'm going to try them out on my mates MX-5 first as they are easy to get to to fit and adjust.

ChimpOnGas said:

At the end of the day I'm confident I've solved the problem with my LP270 driving lights, but I'll still eventually buy a set of Truck-lites at some point. At which point the PIA LP270 driving lights will stay put but adjusted and wired for main beam rather the my current dip beam improving strategy.

Don't forget the the reason the Golf Mk1 units were chosen for the Chimaera Mk3 conversion was because they come with nice integral adjusting rings which makes them a nice easy bolt in option, they are also adjusted from behind the unit which actually makes them ideal for a Mk3 faired setup as you'd never get to the common front adjuster system used on almost all other 7" round headlight assemblies.

The Truck-lites are designed for cars with 7" round headlights like Land Rovers & Jeeps, if you look at these setups they all have the adjuster ring already mounted to the car making them a drop in replacement for these vehicles. This means you will need to find a mounting and adjustment solution for your Truck-lites, this is hardly beyond the wit on man to solve but it's a consideration and an extra cost all the same.

I would look to use the common 7" round headlight bowls that include adjusters and body mounting points all as one unit, back in the day this type of bowl was metal and they would rot out in just a few years, these days you can get good quality plastic bowls that should last indefinitely especially on a Chimaera where the bowl will live away from road spray.

Just keep in mind these type of bowls offer the adjusting screws on the front, headlights in this setup are adjusted by removing a covering trim and then adjusted from the front. This clearly won't work on a Chimaera Mk3 faired headlight setup as there will be zero access, so you'll need to do what TVR did with the Mk1/2 lights and fabricate some form of "wing nut adjust from behind" system.

This sort of thing used in Land Rovers, the Classic Mini and a host of other Brit stuff..





http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/7-HEADLIGHT-HEADLAMP-ADJ...

Buy genuine Wipac plastic units and you should be fine but there will be some fabrication involved, and of course the front facing adjuster issue to solve so you can adjust them from behind.

Once this is all resolved you can prop your Truck-lites in no problem or any other 7" headlight unit for that matter

I'm presuming that I can pretty much take the Tuck-Lite units as a "never need replacing" thing so my "plan" (as far as plans go) was that I'd take an existing mount, (get the lovely and resourceful South African Dave in our workshops at work to) modify it as appropriate to allow for rear adjustment and then just permanently glass the bowl in behind knowing that the sealed unit itself will probably never need to be accessed ever again.

Phil

[ChimpOnGas]

Bassfiend229hp said:

I'm presuming that I can pretty much take the Tuck-Lite units as a "never need replacing" thing so my "plan" (as far as plans go) was that I'd take an existing mount, (get the lovely and resourceful South African Dave in our workshops at work to) modify it as appropriate to allow for rear adjustment and then just permanently glass the bowl in behind knowing that the sealed unit itself will probably never need to be accessed ever again.

Phil

I dont think you'll need to glass the bowls in permanently mate.

1. Starting on the bench build up a British Wipac type bowl/adjuster ring with the Truck-lite as the filling in the sandwich

2. Come up with and install your rear adjuster system

3. Now screw or bolt the whole pre-assembled shebang into the body where your Mk1 Golf units would normally be fixed

4. Reach in and twiddle your rear adjusters to set the beams

I actually haven't seen how Surface & Design fitted my Golf Mk1 units to the body and how they resolved the need for rear adjustment, but I bet the units are screwed or bolted to the body rather than being glassed in, and they probably just used the same wing nut system as TVR did for the Mk1/2 Chimaera adjusters.

One thing you need to make sure of is how your final setup will look from the front when you peer through the perspex fairing, you need to ensure this element looks neat from the outside and not ugly and unfinished with a great gap around the outside of the Truck-lite unit.

Like I say, none of the above is beyond the whit of man, personally I'd present the Truck-lite units to whoever is doing your Mk3 headlight conversion and ask the body shop to fit them instead of the normal Golf Mk1 headlights.

Ask them to use the common British type bowl arrangement in plastic, tell them you want to make the Truck-lites removable so you can replace/upgrade in future, make sure they can be adjusted from the rear and insist the finished job must also look neat from the outside when you look through the Perspex faired covers.

Not really hard to do or expensive as the Wipac bowls are normally just £30 a pair, but you will need to get these elements right to make the apparently excellent performing Truck-lites work properly and look neat in your new lovely Mk3 headlight conversion.

Good luck with the project, do keep us all posted on how the installation challenges were resolved and ultimately how the Truck-lites perform

[Bassfiend229hp]

Hopefully the headlight bowls should be here before the lights but I've already had a little chat with our lovely Dave down in the workshops and he's usually pretty good at finding nicely engineered solutions to problems like this so I'm not too concerned as yet.

Even if all else fails I'll still end up with some 7" Golf fitments with some LED bulbs in and Steve will end up with a freebie set of LEDs in his MX-5.

I'm currently up to £7,771.86 on this epic rebuild journey with no real end point in sight yet as I keep adding to it...!

Phil

[ChimpOnGas]

Wow, that's a full restoration project for sure.

Good luck and keep the faith mate!

[Bassfiend229hp]

ChimpOnGas said:

Wow, that's a full restoration project for sure.

Good luck and keep the faith mate!

Started out as a nice simple bottom end rebuild on my 4.0 using all the existing bits and anciliaries...

...has ended up being a full 5.0 build with new cam, new heads, new oil pump, new inlet manifold + trumpet base + trumpets , 52mm plenum, new injectors, new water pump, new starter motor, new clutch, 'new' gearbox (with the S10 tailhousing swap) and new propshaft UJ's.

I'm changing the coil location in preparation for possibly popping on a supercharger after a few thousand miles.

I've got the headlights being done.

16" rims bought and refurbed with new tyres going on the front with spacers for 324mm discs and Brembo four pots.

I've bought the later radiator cowls, a pair of the second meatiest 12" SPAL fans that they do and have a two stage fan controller sat waiting to go in there and, if the budget will run to it, probably a set of ProTech shocks and springs...

...then of course there's the Jag seats and new dash still to do!

Edited to add ... And it'll still look like a pile of st because it *NEEDS* a retrim and respray...

Phew!

Edited by Bassfiend229hp on Thursday 28th January 16:33

[ricky302]

ChimpOnGas said:

I don't think shinning headlights against a garage door can be considered a scientific test, I'd rather see how they compare on a professional beam setter.

You're quite right, it's as scientific as pictures of the front of a car with led lights or pictures of lights shining on a road.

But if you're happy changing bulbs come MOT time (as I am) then these LED units are a large improvement over halogens.

H4 LED beam pattern

[GC8]

Bassfiend229hp said:

the Chinese will make you anything you want to whatever level of quality you want ... you just have to decide what you want to pay for

This. Most copies aren't made by Foxconn though...

[ChimpOnGas]

ricky302 said:

ChimpOnGas said:

I don't think shinning headlights against a garage door can be considered a scientific test, I'd rather see how they compare on a professional beam setter.

You're quite right, it's as scientific as pictures of the front of a car with led lights or pictures of lights shining on a road.

But if you're happy changing bulbs come MOT time (as I am) then these LED units are a large improvement over halogens.

H4 LED beam pattern

Agreed

I'm super happy with my drop in H4 LED replacement bulbs, even though they are not 100% perfect in every respect they are such a massive step up and offer so many advantages over traditional incandescent H4 bulbs.

As long as you're not dazzling oncoming road users for £50-£60 a set they are an astonishingly good value upgrade.

Hope my post helped?

[ricky302]

ChimpOnGas said:

Hope my post helped?

It did, I bought the exact same ones as you got in the first page and was very surprised at the build quality of them.

[Bassfiend229hp]

Well they've arrived...

[Bassfiend229hp]

Oooooo ... I even got a free gift from them ...






...just not quite sure where I'd want to mount it though.

Phil

[900T-R]

Just the reason you need for buying a Defender to accompany the Tiv.

[Bassfiend229hp]

900T-R said:

Just the reason you need for buying a Defender to accompany the Tiv.

If I could find a nice SWB V8 Defender that was cheap I'd have one!!!

[900T-R]

What are the original (non-faired in) round (Bosch/AL) headlights then if not 7" - 180 mm?

ChimpOnGas said:

This isn't really an option on the original headlight units but as soon as you upgrade to Mk3 headlights you are working with the very common 7" round headlight unit which is fitted to everything from Morris Minors to the Jeeps to Land Rovers and a gazillion vehicles in between.

[Bassfiend229hp]

They do sit quite proud of the mounting ring though - probably not much further than a normal sealed beam unit overall but I think that a normal sealed beam is more convex and not so obviously "shouldered".

Of course when being popped in the Chim then it can just be mounted further back if absolutely necessary...