(BTW, hope you don't mind me hijacking your thread somewhat. I just get excited about lighting
)
Can I just say, jeebus. That's a metric ass-ton of electrical crap! My poor little five-spot fuse panel and relay row is looking all feeble and lonely
When you say airbags, you talking about helper springs? Why do they need electrical, a valve or something?
-- A
Nope, I don't mind the hijack. Yes, Air Lift air bags, I think 5k lbs rated. They have onboard air and solenoids to automatically keep the pressure where I set the controller and to fill or dump them. I also have a second compressor for the old Rancho 9000 shocks that I had on the truck before. The air replaced the finger adjustment at the shock. Yes, I didn't want to crawl under to change the settings or fill air bags.
I use the truck to pull a 9k pound toy hauler with a 1180 pound tongue weight. The truck was always loaded with my tools and any supplies I had, plus additional building materials for work, so at times I wanted to give the 33" tires a bit of breathing room under the rear fenders and change the ride, as well as adjusting for towing.
I have a relay for the 4 extra backup lights on the truck as well. I hated not being able to see what I was doing in the dark. Two of the lights shinned at the back of the tires, from under the trailer hitch mount, and made it easy to back up parallel to a curb. One relay was triggered by the ignition and would use the second battery to power the stereo, which meant the stereo never killed the cranking battery.
Yes, there is 10 pounds of **** in a 5 pound box, but at least it isn't under the dash anymore. I added a lot of creature comforts to the truck.
I drove my truck tonight with the Hella conversion lights. I am not sure if they are aimed quite right, but I didn't get flashed and I could see much better. Now, the headlights don't draw down the power from my original fuse panel like they did before. I didn't run the fan on the heater/ac to see if it would cause the lights to dim. It would in the past.
The battery isolator knocks my alternator output to the batteries down to 13.7 volts. It is higher before the isolator. Powermaster said this is normal. With the headlights now drawing power from the second battery, they should have little effect on the rest of the wiring in the truck. An added benefit, leaving the headlights on would drain the second batter, but the running lights would still drain the first. I don't forget anymore...........I got that out of the way when I first started driving this truck.
The LED's look great, but the Hella kit was worth while, especially considering I was just going to go to the auto store and get silverstars. I didn't realize a good upgrade was available for these trucks.
LED lights rock. I used an LED personal headlight to finish up the soldering and wiring on my truck, in the dark. A member on the castboolit forum orders parts made and assembles his own led flashlights. He uses common manufacturers, but the electronics are to his spec. The handheld lights have a brand name on the housing, because he buys from they and doesn't order enough to get his own label. Everyone on that forum raves about the output and quality of his stuff. He seems to be able to weed the good parts out of all that is available now. I didn't think his headlight would have good enough light to work in total darkness doing detailed work, but it blew me away, as I just kept on working. His $10 mini light that used a single AA battery blows away my 3d mag lite led conversion. The headlight and handheld light I ordered, use 18650 rechargeable batteries. He said the first batch of chargers sent to him didn't cut off at 4.2 volts like they should, so he had them changed out. It makes sense that there are some great parts out there, but many bad ones as well.
(Admittedly that's with the higher current drain of halogen, but it's still bad.)
My DD's (Nissan and Ford, both 2014) have factory HID's, and these 7" LED's are as good as those.
