I just got this set of headlight housings off eBay for $50 shipped. Used, says they were pulled from a Chevy work truck. Shipped in the Chevy buckets with the retainer rings and screws, so I’ll have spares. Great condition, no defects in the glass or reflectors. Glass, marked DOT. With 9003 Silverstar Ultra bulbs (haven’t tested them) but I can put whatever I want in there anyway. Still got some dielectric grease on the terminals. I figured for glass DOT housings the price was good.

Can anyone tell what brand they are, and if they are any good? All I can tell is possibly HDI or WDI, but can’t find any info on that.

I’ve already got a headlight harness with Bosch relays in my XJ. Which improved my current headlights quite a bit. I’d like to put the brightest street legal halogen bulbs in these. Don’t want to blind others with LEDs, and also want the halogen heat so the snow will melt. It would be nice to improve upon the 6054HO sealed beams I currently have. After new years I’m gonna be doing a lot of late nights at work with snow and plenty of deer to watch for.

 

I never saw headlights that weren't branded, which makes me wonder if these are Chinese - although clearly intended for the US market.

Not that the make is important, although some mean quality comes as standard. It's performance & longevity that are important.

As for bulbs:-
"These are currently the highest performing stock wattage bulbs on the market:

• Philips Racing Vision +150 or +200 - Best low beam, reduced high beam output. See updated +200 review in post #3169. Followed by Osram Nightbreaker +200 in post #4066.
• 
  
  
  
  GE Lighting H4 NHX/BP2 Nighthawk Xenon Replacement Headlight Bulb, 2-Pack
  GE Nighthawk Xenon +120 - Full performance high beam

Which bulb is best? Depends on your needs. The +150 bulbs are going to provide excellent low beam performance, but coat the high beam reducing performance. The Philips are rated at 200hrs. The GE +120s have a blue coating on the tip but leave both the low and high beam uncoated giving superior high beam performance with a slightly lower low beam performance over the other bulbs.

Other bulbs
Hella 80/100w

Philips vs Volsa:
While Osram and Philips are constantly compared and about equal when running the latest version of each bulb, I hadn't seen any comparison with Volsa +100, which was marketed as a replacement to the outgoing 70w Osrams. So I took the opportunity to compare them on a 1st Gen later in the thread here.

Note that Sylvania Silverstars (different than Osram Silverstars) are not on the list, as a fully coated stock wattage bulb is lower performing. The Silverstar XZE have an output of 1500/910 lumens and a life of 150hrs."

Stolen from Tundra World forum, probably the definitive guide to all things H4

 

Thanks so much, that’s excellent information! The 150 looks like a good fit, as low beams are the multiple whammy of reduced output, distance, and being blinded by tall pickups half the time. Better lows even at the expense of crazy bright highs would be wonderful. I don’t drive fast and only go about a half hour a day, and only drive the Jeep in the winter, so the reduced lifespan should still net me a season or two.

All I can find about the brand is it’s probably a Thai company who makes headlights for many OEMs including Ford and Chevy. The WDI logo is the same. These are cast aluminum housings.

https://www.sciencepark.or.th/docume...%20profile.pdf

So anyway, just one other question, so I only have to pull things apart once. Should these drop right in a 96 XJ? Or should I plan to modify the buckets, core support, etc. ?

Edit: The Silverstars I have are the Ultra. They have a break in the blue coating similar to the Philips Racing 150 bulbs, which I’m having a hard time finding in the USA, shipping could be the end of January. If these work I’ll give them a try while I look at the others.

 

I have Autopal E-code h4 converstions in my XJ. They look nearly identical to these. You should just be able to drop em in without any issues or modifications.

 

Let us know how it goes, I want to upgrade my headlights soon. I've used the Silverstars in the past and liked them, but without any comparison to other brands.

 

They look similar to my Autopals too, but they don't have a ribbed reflector floor - & they're all-plastic!

Those pictures don't look like cast ally to me.

Thai is generally better than Chinese (& not just food) & there's one company there that's a major player in the replacement headlamp market.

The lamps you have are a generic lamp fitted to any number of, predominantly, American & Japanese vehicles once round headlamps weren't mandatory in the US (think of them as the square version of the original 7" round lamp) so, yes they are a straight swap for the OEM sealed beams in an XJ. If, on the other hand, you were asking about the bulbs, an H4 is an H4 is an H4.

I do recall a lot of the Tacoma guys get their bulbs from a company her in the UK. Can't think of the name, checkout their site or sift through eBay.co.uk. If you're in no hurry, I'm hoping to resume my annual American roadtrips next year, so we might be able to sort something out.

 

Thanks. They are indeed glass lenses with cast aluminum bodies. With a maroon or burgundy paint. There are a few spots where the paint has chipped off, and it’s definitely cast aluminum underneath. I don’t know about the inside reflector bowl, but I’m not going to stick my finger in there and smudge it either. Can’t really see in the angle of the pics, but both the “floor” and “ceiling” of the bowl are ribbed the same.

Looks like we are gonna have some good weather reaching the 40s this weekend, so hopefully I’ll have a chance to get these installed. I’ll try to do a comparison of the light output too.

 

Rain last weekend but I’m off work for the week now. Got the new lights in today.

At first I thought I was gonna have to trim the Jeep buckets. For whatever reason, there are 2 “flaps” of steel that protrude into the circular clearance hole in back. What I ended up doing was taking some large channel lock pliers, and opening them to spread the flaps, and create a full circle of clearance. Now the new lights fit.

To align the new lights, I just had parked the Jeep so the bright spot of the old low beams were centered on the horizontal strip just below center of the garage door. Then without moving the Jeep, I adjusted the new lights so the low beams spots were in the same place. The new pics are after a test drive, that’s why the Jeep is moved, but the low beams are centered at the same place on the door. And I tried to take the pics looking down the center of the Jeep.

These photos from my phone show a ton more light than I see with my eyes. With my eyes I see the actual spot beam patterns. Wish I could capture that. But it’s apples to apples. I even took the pics at the same time of evening, 1 day apart.

I don’t remember if I had the engine running for the old lights, so I included both off and on for the new lights.


New lights installed


Old low beams


New low beams, engine off


New low beams, engine running


Old high beams


New high beams, engine off


New high beams, engine running

Out on the road, it’s a massive improvement! I took it about a mile down my road. I encountered about 5 cars getting home from work, nobody flashed me. What’s weird is on the garage door, the lows look in the same ballpark but with a better cutoff, but the highs look insane. On the road, the lows are way more intense than the highs, though the highs are spread out sufficiently to see well when there’s no traffic. The lows have the slight yellow hue, where the highs are whiter due to the blue in the high beam area. But these are a big help when other cars are approaching.

Definitely happy with these! Another test will be how well I can see when it’s snowing hard or raining.

Not sure how much more life is in these bulbs so I’ll pick up a spare set of something.

 

Those are the Rampage brand headlights.... The backs are cast and the lenses are glass.No plastic used...

. Actually a good all around housing....Nice score...

...

 

Thanks, great info! Yes they look just like that. Same specs, same reflector pattern, same WDI logo on the lens. Same color paint on the housings.

Doing some reading on threads, seems pretty much everyone is impressed with the output and happy with them.

 

Quite the result. While I couldn't see they were Autopals, it never occurred to me you'd got Rampages, given what you paid.

 

Got me another set for backup. $20, new in box. Seller happened to be right on my daughter’s way to work, so she picked them up and brought them when she came up for new years.

I took them out to make sure they hadn’t been dropped or anything, and they all test to identical ohms which is good.

 

I like the silverstar ultras...They really shoot the beams down the road....