Brighter headlights on Gen-1 explorer

MrWizard · 03-13-2007, 10:06 PM

How to increase the headlight brightness on a Generation-1 Explorer:

My Gen-1 1994 explorer uses 9004 halogen bulbs, which only put
out around 700 lumens. I converted it to use 9007 halogen bulbs which
puts out around 1000 lumens.
A bulb swap from the OEM 9004's to the much brighter 9007's has
been discussed in various forums (including here in 2001) and
thought I'd write up a more detailed how-to guide. And determine
whether one needs to upgrade the entire wiring harness or not.
Plus see if the resulting beam pattern is okay with the stock reflectors.

Instructions:
1. Buy:
- New 9007 halogen bulbs.
( I used Silvania 9007XV bulbs. About $20/pair at Autozone. )
- 9004 or 9007 wiring harness. This three wire cable has a male
connector on one end, and a female connector on the other end,
and is about 6" long.
( I bought mine for $20. )

2. Remove existing headlight bulbs. Twist the lightbulb retaining ring
counterclockwise ( on back of headlight housing) about a 1/4 turn
while pulling on it. Pull out old lightbulb. Disconnect the wiring
connector from the bulb. The bulb has three wires going to it, low
beam (red/black), high beam (light green/black) and ground (solid black).
Save the bulbs if you want to go back to factory original. Be careful
not to touch the glass part of the bulb with your fingers as any
oil will dramatically reduce the bulb life.

3. Modify the purchased 9004/9007 wiring harness to reverse the low
beam wire and the ground wire. On the Racing Labs harness these are
the red and black wires. This is the wiring harness already
modified to reverse the red and black wires:

If you'd like to save the $20 for the harness you can either remove the
pins in the existing Ford connector and swap the red/black wire and
the black wire, or cut the two wires and swap them. I preferred to use
the separate adaptor harness so I could go back to factory original
if needed.

4. Cut the two keying tabs on the existing headlight housing - at the
5:00 o'clock position and the 8:00 o'clock position. I used a dremel tool.
You shouldn't have to remove the headlight housings in order to do this,
but may have to remove the battery.

5. Insert new 9007 bulbs. They will only go in one way and shouldn't
rotate around in the housing if you saved the last remaining keying
tab at the 12:00 o'clock position. Be careful not to touch the bulb
surface with your bare oily fingers. Twist on retaining ring. Plug in
adaptor harness. Looks like:

6. Reaim the headlights. The 9007 bulbs have differently oriented filaments
and the beam aim and pattern will be very different than the 9004's.
Especially in the vertical direction. Use a 4mm hex socket, or headlight
adjust tool. The vertical adjust screws are the long black shafts on the
outer edges of the headlight housings. Here's what my new beam pattern
looks like: (Actually better than the very scattered, very dim, original.)

You're done.

The geeky stuff:
The 9007 bulbs use 55 Watts, and the existing 9004 bulbs use only 45 Watts.
Since you're drawing 10 Watts more per headlight, the voltage drop in
the factory wiring is a bit higher. If the voltage drop is too much, the
9007 light output could actually be lower than the factory 9004's.
( A 5% drop in voltage lowers the light output of a halogen bulb by
almost 20%. ) To check this, I measured the voltage at the bulbs
before and after the mod. The voltage was about 2% lower. The 9007's
are still 30% brighter even with the slightly lower voltage at the bulbs.
If you want to go even brighter, you can always modify one or both of
the adaptor harnesses to include a relay and run a separate wire directly
to the battery. I chose not to do this to keep the install as simple as
possible. And, running the full battery/alternator voltage (14.4V) to the bulbs also
dramatically reduces the bulb life since they are spec'd to run at 12.8V.
A 12% increase in bulb voltage would increase the brightness 50%, but
reduce the life by 75%. Since the 9007XV's already have a shorter life than
the regular 9007's, I didn't want to cut that down even further.
Plus the new 9007 headlights are plenty bright now.

V @ Batt w/ engine running = 14.4 V
Original 9004, voltage at bulb:
Left = 13.0 V Right = 12.7 V
Estimated light output = 709 Lumens

New 9007 with factory wiring:
Left = 12.7 V Right = 12.4 V
Estimated light output = 935 Lumens

A 30% improvement in light output for less than $50.

**Rick** · 03-21-2007, 11:23 AM

Thanks for the article

*EMG7895* · 03-21-2007, 06:33 PM

where did you buy the harness from?

*Jason94sport* · 03-23-2007, 08:46 AM

Wouldn't buying higher performance bulbs like PIAA or silverstars be doing the same thing?
And when you mod the headlight housing your able to get the old bulbs back in with no problems?

MrWizard · 03-23-2007, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EMG7895

where did you buy the harness from?

I bought the stock harness from Racing Labs. If you do a google search
it is the first listing.
Wasn't sure if posting URLs was allowed, or not.

MrWizard · 03-24-2007, 12:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason94sport

Wouldn't buying higher performance bulbs like PIAA or silverstars be doing the same thing?
And when you mod the headlight housing your able to get the old bulbs back in with no problems?

I only avoided PIAAs because of the high cost. About triple the cost of
an ordinary 9007 bulb. And some vague reports about short bulb life.

Silverstars as far as I can tell would have to be either less bright,
because you are painting a blue coating on a similar bulb, or you
take a hit on the bulb life by boosting the light output to compensate
for the blue coating. ( I wonder sometimes how bright these other
bulbs really are, when the manufacturer doesn't list the light output as
any brighter than the regular bulbs.) whereas 9007's are spec'd at 42%
brighter than 9004's, so I have more confidence they will be brighter.

The old 9004 bulbs go back in fine, since you are just cutting out the
blocking tabs that prevent a 9007 from going in the same socket.
'course you have to remove the adaptor plug to get the wiring back
to stock.

*Jason94sport* · 03-24-2007, 01:10 PM

Quote:

The old 9004 bulbs go back in fine, since you are just cutting out the
blocking tabs that prevent a 9007 from going in the same socket.
'course you have to remove the adaptor plug to get the wiring back
to stock.

ah ok

Glacier991 · 03-24-2007, 03:42 PM

URL's are ok. I found the website.... here is the link to the page with the harnesses:

http://store.racinglab.com/headbulwirha.html

I am a little unclear.. of the wiring harnesses, you can use either the 9004 one OR the 9007 one? I guess I was expecting to see one that converted a 9004 to 9007. (You can tell I know squat about headlight lamps, can't ya?)

ps. I found this thread because I decided to replace the headlight assemblies on my 92, one was cracked and had water in it, and the other is dull and no longer clear, I found an inexpensive place to buy new ones, and decided to see about upgrading the bulbs. Thanks for your thread, it's great. Oh, and if anyone wants to replace their headlight assemblies, these prices are the best I have found as I was searching for reasonably priced ones:

http://www.directautomotiveproducts....eadlights.html

MrWizard · 03-24-2007, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glacier991

URL's are ok. I found the website.... here is the link to the page with the harnesses:

http://store.racinglab.com/headbulwirha.html

I am a little unclear.. of the wiring harnesses, you can use either the 9004 one OR the 9007 one? I guess I was expecting to see one that converted a 9004 to 9007. (You can tell I know squat about headlight lamps, can't ya?)

Yes, you can use either the 9004 or the 9007 harness. In either case
you modify the harness to cross the low beam wire and the ground
wire as shown in the picture. The connector pins pull out easily with
a jeweler's screwdriver.

Glacier991 · 03-25-2007, 12:45 PM

Thanks!

Glacier991 · 04-03-2007, 11:40 PM

Well I followed your advice, and in addition added new housings with clear new lenses....WOW! Thanks you so much you getting this project started for me.

I wrote up my experiences following your advice:

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/...d.php?t=183532

buckshotmudder · 04-04-2007, 06:25 AM

nice write up

FordMan4Life · 04-22-2007, 11:32 PM

When I had my 1990 Ford Ranger I ended up replacing my lamps with 9004 80/100 watters (low/high) I believe made by GE, would have to look back at them. They are crazy bright. Originally used of highway semi units. $40 bucks a pair is not a bad price to pay. And no modding needed. Still iffy wheter or not they are 100% street legal, but I ran them for 7 years and no tickets or warnings. Now just to remember to put them into 1994 Explorer XLT... right now it has Silverstars in it... and that is still better than stock.

Just another idea in the pool.

Don

1994 Explorer XLT

jc_663 · 05-15-2007, 01:44 AM

Excellent write-up
I have 2 Q:
Is this also works for the 1996 Explorer sport (2 doors / 6 cyl) ?
Also, do I need to Install relay in order to save the original wiring?
Thank you

Bill Kemp · 05-15-2007, 08:50 PM

jc 663
Generation 1 (pre 1995) Explorers had 9004 headlight bulbs. Gen 2 X's have 9007 bulbs. This post is about changing from 9004 to 9007 bulbs.
You already have 9007 bulbs.

Flash · 06-28-2007, 02:27 AM

What is the difference between 9004, 9007 and H4 bulbs?

I use 130/90 H4 bulbs in my '96, I just need some spots now for penetration.

green4WDmonster · 09-11-2007, 02:53 PM

Ok, I did this mod. Followed the directions to the T. but opted to just switch the wires in the factory harness. Green/black with black, just like it said. Now my high beam light in the cluster is on whenver the headlights are on and whenever i switch to to highs, the lights are so dim they're nearly off and the high beam light in the cluster goes off. How did this go wrong?

Bill Kemp · 09-11-2007, 09:43 PM

I would think you have the wires "messed-up". (That's a technical wiring term.) The ground wire isnt where its supposed to be and so one of the other wires is missplaced also. Double check the placement on the wires as one or more is out of place.

green4WDmonster · 09-12-2007, 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Kemp

I would think you have the wires "messed-up". (That's a technical wiring term.) The ground wire isnt where its supposed to be and so one of the other wires is missplaced also. Double check the placement on the wires as one or more is out of place.

That's kinda what i was thinking....but if that's the case, it means it's been messed up from the factory and how did the original 9004 bulbs work for the last 15 years?

the truck is a 93 sport, by the way.

MrWizard · 09-15-2007, 01:31 PM

I messed up in the third part of the write-up. The first sections say to
swap the low beam wire (red/black) and the ground wire. This is correct.
The photos are correctly labeled as well.

In section three I said to swap the green/black wire and the black wire,
if you don't want to use the adaptor. This was incorrect. This contradicts
all the previous write-up. (The green/black wire is the high beam wire,
not the low beam wire. Leave the high beam wire alone.)

I corrected the original posting's write-up in section three to correctly
reflect that you are supposed to swap the (red/black) low-beam wire
and (black) ground wire.

Sorry!

03-13-2007, 10:06 PM	#1
MrWizard Wannabe Elite Explorer Bay Area, CA '94 XLT, '98 XLT Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 77 Vehicle Specs (Original Poster)	Brighter headlights on Gen-1 explorer How to increase the headlight brightness on a Generation-1 Explorer: My Gen-1 1994 explorer uses 9004 halogen bulbs, which only put out around 700 lumens. I converted it to use 9007 halogen bulbs which puts out around 1000 lumens. A bulb swap from the OEM 9004's to the much brighter 9007's has been discussed in various forums (including here in 2001) and thought I'd write up a more detailed how-to guide. And determine whether one needs to upgrade the entire wiring harness or not. Plus see if the resulting beam pattern is okay with the stock reflectors. Instructions: 1. Buy: - New 9007 halogen bulbs. ( I used Silvania 9007XV bulbs. About $20/pair at Autozone. ) - 9004 or 9007 wiring harness. This three wire cable has a male connector on one end, and a female connector on the other end, and is about 6" long. ( I bought mine for $20. ) 2. Remove existing headlight bulbs. Twist the lightbulb retaining ring counterclockwise ( on back of headlight housing) about a 1/4 turn while pulling on it. Pull out old lightbulb. Disconnect the wiring connector from the bulb. The bulb has three wires going to it, low beam (red/black), high beam (light green/black) and ground (solid black). Save the bulbs if you want to go back to factory original. Be careful not to touch the glass part of the bulb with your fingers as any oil will dramatically reduce the bulb life. 3. Modify the purchased 9004/9007 wiring harness to reverse the low beam wire and the ground wire. On the Racing Labs harness these are the red and black wires. This is the wiring harness already modified to reverse the red and black wires: If you'd like to save the $20 for the harness you can either remove the pins in the existing Ford connector and swap the red/black wire and the black wire, or cut the two wires and swap them. I preferred to use the separate adaptor harness so I could go back to factory original if needed. 4. Cut the two keying tabs on the existing headlight housing - at the 5:00 o'clock position and the 8:00 o'clock position. I used a dremel tool. You shouldn't have to remove the headlight housings in order to do this, but may have to remove the battery. 5. Insert new 9007 bulbs. They will only go in one way and shouldn't rotate around in the housing if you saved the last remaining keying tab at the 12:00 o'clock position. Be careful not to touch the bulb surface with your bare oily fingers. Twist on retaining ring. Plug in adaptor harness. Looks like: 6. Reaim the headlights. The 9007 bulbs have differently oriented filaments and the beam aim and pattern will be very different than the 9004's. Especially in the vertical direction. Use a 4mm hex socket, or headlight adjust tool. The vertical adjust screws are the long black shafts on the outer edges of the headlight housings. Here's what my new beam pattern looks like: (Actually better than the very scattered, very dim, original.) You're done. The geeky stuff: The 9007 bulbs use 55 Watts, and the existing 9004 bulbs use only 45 Watts. Since you're drawing 10 Watts more per headlight, the voltage drop in the factory wiring is a bit higher. If the voltage drop is too much, the 9007 light output could actually be lower than the factory 9004's. ( A 5% drop in voltage lowers the light output of a halogen bulb by almost 20%. ) To check this, I measured the voltage at the bulbs before and after the mod. The voltage was about 2% lower. The 9007's are still 30% brighter even with the slightly lower voltage at the bulbs. If you want to go even brighter, you can always modify one or both of the adaptor harnesses to include a relay and run a separate wire directly to the battery. I chose not to do this to keep the install as simple as possible. And, running the full battery/alternator voltage (14.4V) to the bulbs also dramatically reduces the bulb life since they are spec'd to run at 12.8V. A 12% increase in bulb voltage would increase the brightness 50%, but reduce the life by 75%. Since the 9007XV's already have a shorter life than the regular 9007's, I didn't want to cut that down even further. Plus the new 9007 headlights are plenty bright now. V @ Batt w/ engine running = 14.4 V Original 9004, voltage at bulb: Left = 13.0 V Right = 12.7 V Estimated light output = 709 Lumens New 9007 with factory wiring: Left = 12.7 V Right = 12.4 V Estimated light output = 935 Lumens A 30% improvement in light output for less than $50. Last edited by MrWizard; 09-15-2007 at 01:22 PM. Reason: link photos to explorerforum website instead of ext site

03-21-2007, 11:23 AM	#2
Rick Admin Pumpkin Pilot Wayoutin, Aridzona '93 XL Join Date: Feb 1999 Posts: 27,253 Vehicle Specs	Thanks for the article __________________ Rick Horwitz, AB7FH "Serious Exploration's" Admin Rick's '93/'98 Explorer "The Great Pumpkin" Dodge Dart 512 Resto/Race 10.29 @ 129 2004 Mustang Mach 1 2003 Dodge Ram/Cummins Dually

03-23-2007, 08:46 AM	#4
Jason94sport Elite Explorer South FL 93 Sport 2WD 5 speed Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 3,473 Vehicle Specs	Wouldn't buying higher performance bulbs like PIAA or silverstars be doing the same thing? And when you mod the headlight housing your able to get the old bulbs back in with no problems? __________________ 1993 2WD Sport 5 speed BBK TB, Flowmaster Force II Cat Back, CAI Pioneer HU, Clarion speakers, RF R300 powered 10" sub

03-24-2007, 03:42 PM	#8
Glacier991 EF Tranny Guru Sacramento, CA 95827 1992 XLT Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 9,830 Vehicle Specs	URL's are ok. I found the website.... here is the link to the page with the harnesses: http://store.racinglab.com/headbulwirha.html I am a little unclear.. of the wiring harnesses, you can use either the 9004 one OR the 9007 one? I guess I was expecting to see one that converted a 9004 to 9007. (You can tell I know squat about headlight lamps, can't ya?) ps. I found this thread because I decided to replace the headlight assemblies on my 92, one was cracked and had water in it, and the other is dull and no longer clear, I found an inexpensive place to buy new ones, and decided to see about upgrading the bulbs. Thanks for your thread, it's great. Oh, and if anyone wants to replace their headlight assemblies, these prices are the best I have found as I was searching for reasonably priced ones: http://www.directautomotiveproducts....eadlights.html Last edited by Glacier991; 03-24-2007 at 03:54 PM.

04-04-2007, 06:25 AM	#12
buckshotmudder Wannabe Elite Explorer Jefferson City, TN 04 Sport Trac 2wd Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 687 Vehicle Specs	nice write up __________________ 04 Sport Trac 2wd- 265/35/22s~ 5% tint~ K&N 57series Intake~Tinted Tails~35% tinted windshield~Black LED 3rd Brake Light~Tailgate LED Light Bar~10K HID's...More To Come

03-21-2007, 06:33 PM	#3
EMG7895 Elite Explorer '91 xlt, 93 Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 1,715 Vehicle Specs	where did you buy the harness from?

03-25-2007, 12:45 PM	#10
Glacier991 EF Tranny Guru Sacramento, CA 95827 1992 XLT Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 9,830 Vehicle Specs	Thanks!

04-03-2007, 11:40 PM	#11
Glacier991 EF Tranny Guru Sacramento, CA 95827 1992 XLT Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 9,830 Vehicle Specs	Well I followed your advice, and in addition added new housings with clear new lenses....WOW! Thanks you so much you getting this project started for me. I wrote up my experiences following your advice: http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/...d.php?t=183532

04-22-2007, 11:32 PM	#13
FordMan4Life Wannabe Elite Explorer '94 XLT Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 2 Vehicle Specs	When I had my 1990 Ford Ranger I ended up replacing my lamps with 9004 80/100 watters (low/high) I believe made by GE, would have to look back at them. They are crazy bright. Originally used of highway semi units. $40 bucks a pair is not a bad price to pay. And no modding needed. Still iffy wheter or not they are 100% street legal, but I ran them for 7 years and no tickets or warnings. Now just to remember to put them into 1994 Explorer XLT... right now it has Silverstars in it... and that is still better than stock. Just another idea in the pool. Don 1994 Explorer XLT

05-15-2007, 01:44 AM	#14
jc_663 Wannabe Elite Explorer Eugene, OR 96 Sport 4WD(New in FORD) Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 9 Vehicle Specs	Excellent write-up I have 2 Q: Is this also works for the 1996 Explorer sport (2 doors / 6 cyl) ? Also, do I need to Install relay in order to save the original wiring? Thank you

05-15-2007, 08:50 PM	#15
Bill Kemp Elite Moderator Emeritus Greenville, MI 98 Mountaineer 5.0 AWD Join Date: Apr 2000 Posts: 5,211 Vehicle Specs	jc 663 Generation 1 (pre 1995) Explorers had 9004 headlight bulbs. Gen 2 X's have 9007 bulbs. This post is about changing from 9004 to 9007 bulbs. You already have 9007 bulbs. __________________ Bill Kemp Mods to come..... 07 Lincoln MKX Clones are people two.

06-28-2007, 02:27 AM	#16
Flash Wannabe Elite Explorer Brisbane Australia 1997 Limited Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 260 Vehicle Specs	What is the difference between 9004, 9007 and H4 bulbs? I use 130/90 H4 bulbs in my '96, I just need some spots now for penetration.

09-11-2007, 02:53 PM	#17
green4WDmonster Wannabe Elite Explorer Rochester, New York 1993 Sport Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 56 Vehicle Specs	What did I mess up Ok, I did this mod. Followed the directions to the T. but opted to just switch the wires in the factory harness. Green/black with black, just like it said. Now my high beam light in the cluster is on whenver the headlights are on and whenever i switch to to highs, the lights are so dim they're nearly off and the high beam light in the cluster goes off. How did this go wrong?

09-11-2007, 09:43 PM	#18
Bill Kemp Elite Moderator Emeritus Greenville, MI 98 Mountaineer 5.0 AWD Join Date: Apr 2000 Posts: 5,211 Vehicle Specs	I would think you have the wires "messed-up". (That's a technical wiring term.) The ground wire isnt where its supposed to be and so one of the other wires is missplaced also. Double check the placement on the wires as one or more is out of place. __________________ Bill Kemp Mods to come..... 07 Lincoln MKX Clones are people two.

09-15-2007, 01:31 PM	#20
MrWizard Wannabe Elite Explorer Bay Area, CA '94 XLT, '98 XLT Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 77 Vehicle Specs (Original Poster)	Correction I messed up in the third part of the write-up. The first sections say to swap the low beam wire (red/black) and the ground wire. This is correct. The photos are correctly labeled as well. In section three I said to swap the green/black wire and the black wire, if you don't want to use the adaptor. This was incorrect. This contradicts all the previous write-up. (The green/black wire is the high beam wire, not the low beam wire. Leave the high beam wire alone.) I corrected the original posting's write-up in section three to correctly reflect that you are supposed to swap the (red/black) low-beam wire and (black) ground wire. Sorry!