APC Clear Corners

The clear front corner lenses from APC give a more uniform

look to the front end. Instaed of having the amber plastic in the

lense, the entire lense is clear now. This seems to give a less

distracting look to the front of the truck.



UPDATE — 09 - 29 - 03

The APC clear corners have developed a leak. Trying to seal

the leak with caulk has failed. This is simply a testament to their

inferior design and construction. For now, the stock corner

lenses have been recalled for duty. I plan to install the newly

designed 2005 OEM headlight assemblies when time permits.

PIAA Headlight Bulbs

Replacing the stock headlight bulbs is a quick and easy way to

get more light on the road. I decided to go with PIAA Xtreme

White Plus bulbs. They advertise a color temperature of 4000°K,

which is a much whiter light than the stock bulbs give off. They

are a significant improvement over the stock bulbs. The addition of

a heavy duty wiring harness with relays will also boost their

output.

PIAA 520 SMR Series Fog Lights

The bumper was designed with 7" diameter recessed holes. The PIAA

520 SMR series fog light was the perfect fit. At 6¼" wide, they fill

up the holes nicely. I used the same line of PIAA bulbs in the

foglights that the headlights have (the Xtreme White series). This

gives a unform look when both lights are on. There's nothing

worse than bright white headlights and yellow fog lights.



I see many vehicles with fog lights which are tucked so far back

into their mounting areas that part of their beam is cut off by the

air dam. When mounting the fog lights, I fabricated a small

bracket to allow the lights to sit right on the edge of their

mounting hole. Mounting the lights in this manner lets the beam

of light out of the lense and to the road unobstructed. It also

throws more light to the sides of the vehicle while still

completely lighting the center of the road. Before the fog lights

were mounted they were disassembled and powder coated.

Hella Rallye 4000 H.I.D. Lights

The Hella H.I.D. 4000 lights were the main influence in the design of

the front bumper. With such high performance lights, they

demanded a custom mount and integration into the front of the

truck. The entire light housing was disassembled. The parts were

then sandblasted and powder coated to match the body paint

color. The powder coating offers a more durable and thicker

finish than regular paint. The lights now look as though they

belong on the bumper as opposed to simply bolted in place.



UPDATE — 09 - 29 - 03

The lights have finally been wired up and connected to a dash

mounted rocker switch. After aiming them, I could finally see what

an H.I.D. light is really capable of. Here is a comparison of just

the headlights on, and the headlights combined with the Hellas on

( notice the difference in the reflective objects ).

Hella L.E.D. Marker Lights

While modifying the bumper I had some holes cut for additional

marker lights. They are sealed, self contained units from Hella.

They have clear lenses and give off an amber light when

illuminated. The clear lenses maintain the uniform look of the rest

of the lights on the front of the truck.

Fog Lights on with High Beams

This modification is just as it reads. From the factory, the fog

lights will turn off when the high beams are switched on.

Allowing the foglights to remain on with the high beams keeps

more light on the road when needed. For detailed instructions on

how to perform this modification go to S&S Diversified. Thanks

to "steveracer" from The Diesel Stop. This literally takes about

10-15 minutes to complete. An additional benefit to this is less wear

on the foglight bulbs due to cycling on and off every time the

high beams are switched on and off.



Essentially all that needs to be done to complete this

modification is cutting this wire. Then simply extend the end of the

wire extending into the pigtail of wires. The extended end should be

grounded to a piece of metal on the truck.

Upgraded Headlight Harness

Most wiring in all vehicles from the factory is a very thin gauge.

The thin wire leads to a dramatic drop in voltage at the item being

powered. This causes the voltage going from the battery to the

headlights to be drastically restricted. Which in turn causes the

light output to be very poor. Using a larger gauge of wire going

to the headlights will allow more volts to actually reach the

bulbs and produce a brighter light. The harness I used is from

SUVLights.com. It is simply a "plug and play" installation and

takes about 15-20 minutes to install. Combined with upgraded

bulbs, the light output from the headlights is dramatically

better.

L.E.D. Turn & Stop Bulbs

L.E.D. (Light Emitting Diode) lights offer many benefits over

incandescent bulbs. Their life span is approximately 10 years and

they draw much less current over incandescent bulbs. Also, they

produce a very specific wavelength of light, so different colors

of bulbs appear very deep in color. The largest benefit to being

used as brake light or turn signal bulbs, is their "instant" on and

off cycling. When an incandescent bulb is powered, the filament

must be heated and goes through a glowing process. This gives

the appearance that, when blinking, the light never really goes

off. It just kind of "fades" from dim to bright. Whereas, the L.E.D.s

come on "instantly" and go off "instantly." This gives a more crisp

look to the bulbs when blinking. As far as being used as a brake

light bulb, they actually give more warning to drivers behind you

due to their quicker illumination over incandescent bulbs. This

equates to 60 feet of extra stopping distance at 60 M.P.H. The

bulbs I am using have 24 L.E.D.s inside of each bulb housing. Most

of the L.E.D.s point straight out, while there is a ring of L.E.D.s

arranged in a circle which point to the sides and throw light in all

directions. This helps to illuminate the lens and fill it with light. In

this .mpeg movie the bulb on the right side is an incandescent and

the left side is an L.E.D. bulb.



UPDATE — 09 - 13 - 03

After inspecting the resistors, which the L.E.D. bulbs require to

blink at the normal rate, I saw that they were getting very hot.

The resistors had melted some plastic wire loom and did not have

a safe place to be mounted. So, now the turn signals blink VERY

fast, like when one filament is burned out on a normal bulb. It is

kind of annoying if the radio is not turned up, but it definately

gets peoples attention when signaling!



UPDATE — 05 - 21 - 04

The resistors have now been safely mounted to prevent any

heat related issues with them. The turn signals are now back to

their normal blink rate.



UPDATE - 02 - 05 - 05

Finally, someone at thedieselstop.com discovered that there

was a replacement electronic flasher. which was designed to

operate L.E.D.s. Until this point, the only way to make the L.E.D.s.

blink at the proper rate was to use resistors. The resistors

defeat the main advantage of L.E.D.s, their low power

consumption. The use of the new electronic flasher allows the

truck's electrical system to use less power to run the L.E.D.s.

Whereas, with the resitors, the truck was still sending more

voltage than the L.E.D.s required. The new flasher also blinks at

a slightly faster rate than the OEM Ford unit. I think this

makes the L.E.D.s stand out even more and shows off their

crispness while blinking.

Grote 4" L.E.D. Taillights

The L.E.D. replacement bulbs I have tried so far have left a lot

to be desired. The main issue was their brightness. Finally, I

decided to alter the lense housing itself, and install some L.E.D.

taillight assemblies intended for the commercial truck industry.



The first step was to make sure the Grote lights would fit

inside the stock taillight housings. The lights do fit, but they

must be placed in just the right position to clear the metal

supports of the truck where the lenses sit. The lights I'm using

are Grote 4" SuperNova L.E.D.s, which have 10 L.E.D.s inside

them. You can see the texture of the lense around each L.E.D.

is designed to disperse it's light as much as possible.



Now, the moment of truth! Once that first cut is made, there's

no turning back. I trimmed the lense in very small amounts at a

time to ensure a good fit once the hole was large enough. There

will naturally be some gaps that require filling around the

L.E.D. housing. I used some mesh drywall tape to hold the

epoxy in place while it dried. This prevents the epoxy from

running down into the lense of the truck. It took about five

small batches of epoxy to completely seal the L.E.D. to the

taillight housing.



With the running lights on, you can make out the individual

L.E.D.s of the Grote lights. In daylight, these lights perform

extremely well. At night, it is much more discernable as to just

how much the L.E.D.s fill the stock lense with light. With the

brakes applied you can see the full brightness these lights

offer.

Hella L.E.D. Brake Light Bar

The decision to add the brake light bar was mainly for safety

reasons. Once the truck's suspension is lifted, the rear bumper

will be about 12" - 14" above it's current location. Having a brake

light bar in this location is an excellent spot for most drivers to

see from the rear. Originally I had planned this bar to be used as

a rear marker light. Once I connected the power I realized these

L.E.D.s were way too bright for this purpose and would be better

served to come on only when the brakes are applied.

Always Bright Overhead Console

This modification is to simply keep the overhead console readout

from dimming when the headlights or parking lights are turned on.

All that is necessary is to disconnect this wire at the passenger's

side kick panel.

Hella Ultra Beam H.I.D. Reverse Light

Backing up at night is almost always a challange. A lifted

truck, with tinted windows can be a recipe for disaster. Trust

me! I know. ; ) Adding a reverse light has been a priority for a

while, and I have finally gotten it done. My main goal was to

add as much light as reasonably possible to the rear, while

maintaining a clean look to the installation. The last thing I

wanted, was to simply hang a light from the bottom of the

bumper. This just creates another item to snag on branches, the

ground, etc., when off-road.



There is not a lot of space behind the rear bumper, but there is

enough to mount good sized light. It just needs to be mounted in

precisely the right spot. You could even fit a light much larger

than the one I used. The light I used was a Hella Ultra Beam

Xenon Work Lamp. Xenon is synonomous with H.I.D. (high

intensity discharge). Xenon is just the gas which is used to

create the arc of light, between two electrodes, inside the bulb.

This arc of light is what actually produces the light you see

coming out of the lens. There is no filament, as in a halogen

bulb. H.I.D. lights are generally 2.5 times brighter than a

halogen bulb. Their light is much whiter, closer to that of

daylight. In addition, their lifespan is about 5 times greater than

a halogen bulb, between 2500 to 3000 hours.



The first step was to prepare the trim ring for painting. Next, it

was time to paint the trim ring to match the truck. Now the

tough part, cutting the bumper. After the hole in the bumper was

cut to size, I coated the raw edges with gray POR-15. This was

a close enough match and prevents any rust from ever forming.

Mounting the base of the light, was by far, the hardest part.

Some creative bending and shimming of the base was necessary

to get the light to sit perfectly in it's opening. A rocker switch

on the dash is used to operate the light.



Backing up is now much safer and easier. In combination with the

reverse camera, the H.I.D. light offers incredible visibility.

Also, the curve to the rear bumper created the perfect angle

for the lamp to sit at and cast light where it is effective.