Hood Light Mounts Install Walk Thru (Lots o pics!)

[gtds1000]

i used hella rallye 4000xi 4'' hids look cool and work great black w/red rings,the little brother to the rallye 4000 8'', got them from 4 wheel parts.

 

[vanilla_gorilla]

i used hella rallye 4000xi 4'' hids look cool and work great black w/red rings,the little brother to the rallye 4000 8'', got them from 4 wheel parts.

Worthless without pics...

 

[Outlaw Offroad]

Thanks for the write up. I just wanted to add 1 thing when choosing a light for the hood mount. We tried several diffrent types and we found a pencil beam works the best by far. The pencil beam puts out little to no light glare a cross the hood. All the other beam patterns light up the hood and caused my driving vision to be distracted at night. I Personaly use the Vision X 4500 pencil beams on RSV 1 & 3. We run the Hella 4" HID on RSV 2 and they are just ok. To much hood glare.

 

[vanilla_gorilla]

Thanks for the write up. I just wanted to add 1 thing when choosing a light for the hood mount. We tried several diffrent types and we found a pencil beam works the best by far. The pencil beam puts out little to no light glare a cross the hood. All the other beam patterns light up the hood and caused my driving vision to be distracted at night. I Personaly use the Vision X 4500 pencil beams on RSV 1 & 3. We run the Hella 4" HID on RSV 2 and they are just ok. To much hood glare.

Thats good to know, because i was thinking of running the D2 in the flood pattern, so i should really run the driving/spot pattern?

The lights you are running are pictured on the white raptor in the pics for the mounts on your website?

 

[BigJ]

Agreed. Thanks for the thoughts. I was planning on the spot D2's... wonder if they're still too broad? Hmm...

x2 'gorilla's question. Do you have any more closeup shots of those lights on the truck by chance?

Thanks again Connor!

 

[RV67]

Hey Jason- nice write/up and I could sense the frustration as I was reading...L ! How about a person put a 1/4 notch from the edge in line w/ the holes so you only had to loosen bolts and install bracket.Think this would help ?

I would also mark the hinges w/ marker before unbolting anything

 

[CineSLR]

Excellent writeup!
I have to agree with Outlaw, had the same initial reaction when you said you wanted to run D2s. The D2s aren't tall ehough and a lot of your light will be lost/reflected back into your face by the hood. I think the LFs are perfect for the setup, just sounds like you have some modding to do to get them to fit. If your hell bent on a pair of D2s I would mount them on the inside of the side mirror and use them as cornering lights. Then you have the distance of the LFs and the coverage of the LEDs...

Hey Outlaw, do you guys offer a half kit? This would be perfect for mounting an antenna...

 

[Outlaw Offroad]

Here is a good night pic with just the hood lights on... This is while I was adjusting them. Light in picture in the Vision X.

I personally think 2 hood lights and a LED bar would be the perfect set up by far.

 

[BigJ]

After lots of reading and investigating and talking with some very experienced folks... I totally agree with OR that the Vision X 4500s and an LED bar up front is just about the perfect setup. And that's the way I'm gonna go... someday.

As for today, after investigating the costs of various options, I've had to resign myself to using what I already have. The 'good stuff' is beyond my means at the moment, and rather than throw a couple hundred into lights that probably wont work as well as what I already have, I figure I might as well save the $$ and use what I got. And that means moving the LightForce Striker HID 170s from my bull bar (where I hated how they worked) to these mounts.

I haven't done the wiring or aligning yet, but here they are mounted up.









I don't hate them as much as I thought I would. Instead I really really really just don't like them. At least, from an asthetics perspective anyway. It remains to be seen how I like them (or not) from a functional standpoint. Gotta get them wired up and aligned before I know that.

As for clearance... that all depends on alignment. The base on these is reversible, and flipping them around allowed them to sit back some, which gave enough room to install and seemingly clear the hood. But its so close that after aligning them right, I may find all my clearance gone and that the hood hits. We'll have to see.

More to come later.

 

[bstoner59]

Just make sure you get it handles before the Mojave trip!!!