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1973 C10 "The Purple Truck"

Basic build
Overview Gallery Discussion
Leaving the house for a board meeting Thursday evening, I turned the headlights on and POOF the driver light went out. These are Hella halogen conversion headlights with 55W/100W H4 bulbs. Based on this experience and the crew cab the 55/100 bulbs don't seem to last. I do see they have heavy duty versions, maybe I need to look at those.

Anyway, I decided to change some headlights around. I put Truck Lite LED lights in the 66 C20, but I have never really liked the looks of them in that truck. So I decided to put the Truck Lites in the C10 and the Hella halogens in the 66. I'll also add a relay set up to the 66.

I think the Truck Lites look better in the 73 because the headlights are recessed in the bezel, where the kinda stick out in the 66.

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Pics from the install in the 66 C20

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The lights are a direct plug and play in both trucks, so that's nice. Especially since its 10F outside, I needed to get it done quick.

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I agree they do look better in the 73 for the exact reason you pointed out. How are the LED bulbs for brightness and being water tight? Im looking at all the options availble and its overwhelming how much junk is posted online, which makes it hard to know whats what. Dapper Lighting seems to make some nice headlights but not sure if 2-300 USD is necessary for lights..
 
The Truck-Lite headlights are in the $300USD range. Not as expensive as the JW Speaker top of the line, but still good quality. I figured out Rigid Industries sells TruckLite for the headlight offering and I thought that was a pretty good endorsement.

We don't get much precipitation around here in what's referred to as the semi-arid high plains. I don't think I can give an accurate account of how water tight they are especially because the 66 doesn't get driven much. I do like the brightness and pattern. Hands down puts a factory sealed beam setup to shame. I had the Hella halogen conversion in the C10 and also still in the crew cab, and I would say the TruckLite LEDs are a little better, but the difference isn't as much as it is versus factory. The other thing I really like about putting the LED headlights in the old trucks, is the smaller amp draw on the old wiring harness. Although doing the relay upgrade helps with this as well.

It is a big pill to swallow to pay the price for quality LED headlights. If the positives aren't enough to justify the cost for you, I would recommend the Hella halogen conversion with relay upgrade. I just ordered the relay upgrade for the 66 from LMC and it's just $25 and will plug into the factory harness with no splicing.

If I decide to buy a set of LEDs for the 66 C20, I would like to get the headlights from Grote. They have good reviews and look more like original sealed beam. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/gte-90941-5 Price range is the same as the TruckLite.

gte-90941-5_gy_xl.jpg
These are 2 videos I watched that I thought gave some pretty good info the different light offerings. I guess the fact that new Jeeps still use 7" round headlights means there are a lot of options available.



Speaking of new Jeeps, I guess the factory LED headlights on the new JL is really good. However, I'm sure if you were to buy a set, the prices is probably about the same as JW Speaker. And the wiring harness is probably different.
 
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mrk5 said:
The Truck-Lite headlights are in the $300USD range. Not as expensive as the JW Speaker top of the line, but still good quality. I figured out Rigid Industries sells TruckLite for the headlight offering and I thought that was a pretty good endorsement.

We don't get much precipitation around here in what's referred to as the semi-arid high plains. I don't think I can give an accurate account of how water tight they are especially because the 66 doesn't get driven much. I do like the brightness and pattern. Hands down puts a factory sealed beam setup to shame. I had the Hella halogen conversion in the C10 and also still in the crew cab, and I would say the TruckLite LEDs are a little better, but the difference isn't as much as it is versus factory. The other thing I really like about putting the LED headlights in the old trucks, is the smaller amp draw on the old wiring harness. Although doing the relay upgrade helps with this as well.

It is a big pill to swallow to pay the price for quality LED headlights. If the positives aren't enough to justify the cost for you, I would recommend the Hella halogen conversion with relay upgrade. I just ordered the relay upgrade for the 66 from LMC and it's just $25 and will plug into the factory harness with no splicing.

If I decide to buy a set of LEDs for the 66 C20, I would like to get the headlights from Grote. They have good reviews and look more like original sealed beam. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/gte-90941-5 Price range is the same as the TruckLite.

View attachment 368722
These are 2 videos I watched that I thought gave some pretty good info the different light offerings. I guess the fact that new Jeeps still use 7" round headlights means there are a lot of options available.



Speaking of new Jeeps, I guess the factory LED headlights on the new JL is really good. However, I'm sure if you were to buy a set, the prices is probably about the same as JW Speaker. And the wiring harness is probably different.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the info! I think ill go the same route as you for now. Hella bulbs with relay upgrade. I do also love the stock look of those grote bulbs. The dapper lighting company makes a bulb thats an oe type. Ill give all those videos a watch though because i think ill want to upgrade to LEDs based on the reviews of the hellas but im not sure.


https://www.dapperlighting.com/products/oe7
 
mrk5 said:
The Truck-Lite headlights are in the $300USD range. Not as expensive as the JW Speaker top of the line, but still good quality. I figured out Rigid Industries sells TruckLite for the headlight offering and I thought that was a pretty good endorsement.

We don't get much precipitation around here in what's referred to as the semi-arid high plains. I don't think I can give an accurate account of how water tight they are especially because the 66 doesn't get driven much. I do like the brightness and pattern. Hands down puts a factory sealed beam setup to shame. I had the Hella halogen conversion in the C10 and also still in the crew cab, and I would say the TruckLite LEDs are a little better, but the difference isn't as much as it is versus factory. The other thing I really like about putting the LED headlights in the old trucks, is the smaller amp draw on the old wiring harness. Although doing the relay upgrade helps with this as well.

It is a big pill to swallow to pay the price for quality LED headlights. If the positives aren't enough to justify the cost for you, I would recommend the Hella halogen conversion with relay upgrade. I just ordered the relay upgrade for the 66 from LMC and it's just $25 and will plug into the factory harness with no splicing.

If I decide to buy a set of LEDs for the 66 C20, I would like to get the headlights from Grote. They have good reviews and look more like original sealed beam. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/gte-90941-5 Price range is the same as the TruckLite.

View attachment 368722
These are 2 videos I watched that I thought gave some pretty good info the different light offerings. I guess the fact that new Jeeps still use 7" round headlights means there are a lot of options available.



Speaking of new Jeeps, I guess the factory LED headlights on the new JL is really good. However, I'm sure if you were to buy a set, the prices is probably about the same as JW Speaker. And the wiring harness is probably different.
Click to expand...

The JL has 9” diameter headlights
 
Drove to a club meeting last night in a moderate snow storm, 30 minutes each way. Did not have an icing issue with the headlights. The only thing I was wondering about is if I might get more back scatter of the lighting on the snow due to the color of the LED headlights being more white. But it's always difficult when you're driving into the snow at night so it might of only been marginally worse.
 
I put 240 pounds of weight in the bed when it snowed Wednesday. It was pretty squatty and rolly after taking those 2 leaves out of the pack. I might have to consider putting 1 back in. Last year with the full pack you couldn't tell the weight was in there.

Or I might do a spring under conversion. That nets about 5" of drop but if I use 3" lift springs it would net 2" drop which is where I'm at now. Plus then I could go back to stock shackles. And I wouldn't be losing load capacity.
 
As neat as the bluetooth feature is with the PF4, I really like just having something that comes on when the truck is on and I don't have to do all the app opening and connecting and selecting gauge display. I purchased a Banks iDash which connects to the PF4 thru a CAN bus connector.

This turned into quite a fun ordeal learning about Deutsch connectors.

First off here's what the connector on the PF4 looks like.

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Big lesson from that part number above, the "M" is important. Those are mini and the typical Deutsch connector is different. I ended up ordering a standard connector. At first I thought just the pins were too big, so I ordered new pins. Then it turned out the plastic connector is also smaller. The mini stuff is all #20 pin which accepts 20-24ga wire.

Here's basically how the Deutsch connector works. All the pieces:

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Strip the wire so that you can see the strands thru the little hole in the pin and there a little bit of exposed wire past the end of the connector.

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It inserts into the crimper which is specific to the pin size.

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And it uses 4 teeth to crimp the connector to the wire.

2021-04-08 14.02.21.jpg

Then you insert the pins into the connector housing until they click into place.

2021-04-08 14.03.19.jpg

And finally a wedge lock is inserted to hold the pins in place.

2021-04-08 14.04.49.jpg

Once I figured out I had the wrong pins and connector housing I had to improvise while I waited for the correct connectors to arrive.

2021-04-20 15.19.06.jpg

For some reason the CAN- and CAN+ between the Banks iDash and PF4 seem to opposite. When I soldered the yellow wire to the iDash harness I connected to the green wire because I thought yellow and green kinda went together. Then I connected the gray wire to the white wire from the iDash. You can see in my photo they are the opposite of that on the PF4 connector. That one had me stumped for a bit, especially since I was already fighting the connector size issue.

Here's how I have the Banks iDash mounted:

2021-04-11 18.56.39.jpg

I used a gauge cup for a 2-1/16" gauge. This location might seem kinda random and a little odd looking, but that was where I used to have the tablet mounted. Rather than redo everything, I just bolted the gauge in the same spot.

The power for the gauge comes off the fuse panel where the hokey previous owner installed tach was powered.

There are several parameters you can display, I just picked 4 I cared the most about. You can do a lot of customization with the gauge display like changing up the colors of the background, numbers, labels, bar graphs, and buttons.

Here's a list of the parameters the iDash can pull from the PF4.

Bank-PF4.jpg
 
So, how much “Intake Manifold Pressure”?
 
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