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LED Fog Bulbs & Lights


OUSux

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I was tired of having the yellow fog lights with the new white LED lights around the headlights and with running HIDs. I didn't like the way they have a round fog light inside a square housing. I've always loved Rigid Industries lights but got tired of waiting for them to release there fog light mounts for the 21014 Sierra. So I took a set of the D2 driving lights and made my own mount. I'm just waiting now to get the brackets powder coated. These lights are brighter then my HID head lights. You would only be able to use them for off road use only because they are so bright. But look awesome.

 

SWEET! Have more pics? How was the install and wiring? Instead of powder coating, have you considering plasti-dipping them? Cheaper and easier.

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SWEET! Have more pics? How was the install and wiring? Instead of powder coating, have you considering plasti-dipping them? Cheaper and easier.

I dont have more pics yet but when I take them off tomorrow to do the finish on them I will take some. The only down fall to the install is you have to cut the factory housing to create a flush surface. So once you do this mod their is no turning back. The hardest part is getting the bracket to fit perfect in the existing opening. Atleast once you get one done you can flip it over and trace it out for the other side. I used 14gauge aluminum to make it easy to work with. I purchased some wire adapters off of ebay that plug directly into the factory harness so you dont have to cut or splice into the factory wires. Since its LED the voltage is low enough to use your factory power source and switch. just mounting the lights level and flush ended up aiming the lights perfect. (I have factory suspension with no leveling kit) I was concerned they would not line up right and was going to have to use spacers behind the mount to compensate but got lucky. I didnt think about plastic dipping but that sounds like a good idea and would match the factory housing pretty close. Will let you know what i decide to do for the finish. Even had one person suggest polishing or chroming them but wasnt a fan of that. Will also post pics at night with them on. These are stupid bright. I love them for when I go hunting or are on a back road. You can't even tell your headlights are on with these because it drowns them out.

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Here are night time pics. First is just the HID head lights with the 35 watt Morimoto 5,000k kit. Next is with the headlights and the LED D2 off road lights in place of the fogs. You can see t

Fog lights4

Fog lights3

Fog lights2

hey are pretty bright and line up pretty good to give you good coverage.

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Looks great!

 

Going to powder coat the metal black, I assume?

I was going to originally but decided to try a few products I could do myself. I tested plastic-dip, rustolem bed liner, and duplicolor bed liner on some scrap pieces of aluminum. After testing all 3, the plastic dip looks great but when mounting hardware it would peel off. The duplicolor bed liner I can scratch off with my finger nail and goes on to thick. The rustoleum bed liner looks great and is very tuff. I can scratch as hard as i can with my fingernail and it wont come off and it has only cured for 1/3 the time. Plus it has a finer texture that looks good and is close to matching the factory plastic. If I have troubles with it later I will take them and get them powder coated if needed.

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I was tired of having....

 

Looking at your gallery pics (http://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/gallery/image/7718-fog-light-opening/), which parts of the factory plastic did you have to cut to separate/remove? versus which parts were easily disassembled? Thanks.

 

 

**Figure it's easier to ask you, then go pull it apart for myself! ha :thumbs:

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Looking at your gallery pics (http://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/gallery/image/7718-fog-light-opening/), which parts of the factory plastic did you have to cut to separate/remove? versus which parts were easily disassembled? Thanks.

 

 

**Figure it's easier to ask you, then go pull it apart for myself! ha :thumbs:

You have to first remove the factory lens and bulb. After you disconnect the harness the lens comes out easily. On the back bottom where you adjust the angle of the lens you can pinch in the tabs on the side of the adjustment mount and push it threw the back of the housing towards the front of the vehicle. Then the lens is held in place by 2 snap in plugs towards the top of the lens. Just grab it from the front and pull it out after releasing the one tab. You can see in the pic of the lens what I mean. Then the round flange that was around the lens also unsnaps. In order to make room for the new LEDs you have to remove the existing mounting area. This part you have to cut out. I used a dremel tool with a cutting bit and just went around the existing mounting ring. you can see in the other pic the piece I removed and how it looks on the truck after. Then I made some adapter rings out of aluminum to fit the opening. I used 8-32 screws to mount the ring to the vehicle in all 4 corners to the existing plastic housing. Then I removed the 4 corner screw from the Rigid industries lights so I could mount the to the bracket. I used a 6-32 x 5/8 screw to do so. On the rigid industries lights there logo is raised on the front of the housing. So i used a file to remove the raised logo making it flush so it looks cleaner when mounted from behind. I also had to file down the 2 existing middle screws on the lights because they also stuck past the surface. Then its a matter of putting a finish on the adapter plates and assembling it all. I used all stainless hardware for mine. I also used nylon lock nuts on the back of the 4 mounting screws in each corner. I got a set of wire harnesses from ebay that plug into the factory harness for power so i didnt have to splice anything on the truck. I just spliced the harness i got with the end of the harness that came with the lights. So now everything just plugs in. When I start to reassemble everything on mine I will take more pics of the harness and the lights mounted to the adapter plate and of course installed on the truck. It will be a few days because I want the plates to cure for at least 3 days before reassembling. So hopefully Friday I will have it all done.

Fog light lense

Fog light Cut Out

Fog light opening

Fog light adapter

Fog lights

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This forum is the devil! Now I'm not sure what I want to do anymore...

 

One long or two small LED lights under rear bumper for reverse?

One long center LED light bar up front? or two LEDs in fog locations? or both?

Go with name brand? or best value for buck?

Decisions, decisions...

 

Here's a few potential brands/vendors I've run across so far:

(*would love Vision-X, but can't justify that kind of cash! ha)
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Vision X products are top notch. They run them on all the US Army Polaris ATV's etc... They are way high priced but if you want to do it and never look back you have the best possible outcome this way. They will have an enclosed retrofit fog housing for the 2014 Sierra eventually (plug n play). I haven't been given an exact time line. I'll wait for them to come out and go that way for fogs.

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Bbowen826 - Very nice work, close to what I am doing. I ordered Rigid D2 Driving lights and am going to put in the factory opening. The difference is that I ordered the base model non-fog light plastic pieces (the plastic block off pieces that do not have the round light in them). They have not come in yet, when they do I will see what I can make with them.

I considered buying those as well so I didn't have to cut into the original ones. But after the dealer wanting over $100 bucks for the pair I figured I might as well take the risk. If down the road I have to take the LEDS out for some reason and convert it back I will be out the extra money then. Plus after looking at trying to remove the plastic housing from the bumper it was harder then what I wanted to mess with. There are 4 bolts in each corner behind the bumper mounting the plastic to the metal. They are not easy to get to with out removing the entire metal bumper first. But I think it would look clean as hell if you could take the blank light housings and just cut the opening for the lights and mount them directly to the new housing without having to make an adapter plate. Let us know how it turns out and good luck. Now you will have the same problem I have. You will want to use the lights all the time because they are so bright, but it will piss everyone off if you did. Even looks awesome keeping them on during the day time.

 

 

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I like the idea of having the light bar and using LED bulbs in the fogs. Got the best of both...the look of nice fogs you can use at all
times without blinding people, then the extra light at a flip of the switch when needed. I agree with motometic... If i was doing an off road light bar I would place them on a seperate switch as well. I understand what Jon A says about tying them into the brights so you don't blind people. If your intensions is to use the LED light bars for on road use that will make sense. Motometic said he was going to use LED bulbs in his fogs for daily use and that the Light bar was for when needed. Hes got a great point about installing off road LEDs in place of your fogs at that high of a cost that you cant use on the road, and you loose regular fogs at the same time. Comes down to what you prefer and plan on using it for. Atleast we all agree that off road lights should be used for "off road". You never know when you need all the extra light when driving to your deer stand at 4:30 in the morning! lol

 

Can't wait to see how the light bar turns out Motometic. I should have pics up tomorrow of the D2's in place of the fogs. The brackets are done and ready for install. Couldn't install today due to rain.

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If I'm reading this documentation correctly that was linked in a prior post from GM Upfitter, the wiring harness plug(X110 and X120 by GM nomenclature) for the left and right headbeams should be an (8) pin harness for each side, the hi-beam supply voltage for the headlight assembly should be the white wire in the harness, pin out C based on the diagrams attached, I've only included the relevant pages on the attachment to help whittle it down from it's native 259 pages.

 

Now depending on what the current draw of the additional lighting is, you may be able to just tap into the supply voltage directly if the current draw is low enough and there is sufficient capacity on the wire. Wiring diagram shows the hi beam supply voltage on a 10 amp fuse, if you don't have enough capacity on stock wires to do that, you can pull the supply line voltage as your relay signal wire then grab the power from somewhere else with more capacity.

 

Normal disclaimers apply to everything I just said as I haven't verified anything with a DMM on my own truck, but if I get time I may be able to check voltages this weekend if my DDM 5k headlight kit comes in as I'll have hopefully have my headlight area torn apart to install that. Feel free to question my schematic reading, can't guarantee it's as good as it should be, I never paid as much attention as I should've in Circuits & Controls in college :)

 

 

 

 

2014 headlight hi beam wiring.pdf

2014 headlight hi beam wiring.pdf

2014 headlight hi beam wiring.pdf

2014 headlight hi beam wiring.pdf

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If I'm reading this documentation correctly that was linked in a prior post from GM Upfitter, the wiring harness plug(X110 and X120 by GM nomenclature) for the left and right headbeams should be an (8) pin harness for each side, the hi-beam supply voltage for the headlight assembly should be the white wire in the harness, pin out C based on the diagrams attached, I've only included the relevant pages on the attachment to help whittle it down from it's native 259 pages.

 

Now depending on what the current draw of the additional lighting is, you may be able to just tap into the supply voltage directly if the current draw is low enough and there is sufficient capacity on the wire. Wiring diagram shows the hi beam supply voltage on a 10 amp fuse, if you don't have enough capacity on stock wires to do that, you can pull the supply line voltage as your relay signal wire then grab the power from somewhere else with more capacity.

 

Normal disclaimers apply to everything I just said as I haven't verified anything with a DMM on my own truck, but if I get time I may be able to check voltages this weekend if my DDM 5k headlight kit comes in as I'll have hopefully have my headlight area torn apart to install that. Feel free to question my schematic reading, can't guarantee it's as good as it should be, I never paid as much attention as I should've in Circuits & Controls in college :)

Even if you stay within the supplied amp range on the headlight their is a chance your computer will not allow it without a special harness. A few of us have found out that the computer can be sensitive to voltage changes on some vehicles causing power issues. If you haven't done so you may want to read the thread for "Stock HIR to HID headlight conversion." you will see the discussion about relays as you did mention and also code eliminators. Now on the Fog light harness this isn't a issue. You can plug into your fogs as long as you don't overload the circuit or wires.

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If I'm reading this documentation correctly that was linked in a prior

post from GM Upfitter, the wiring harness plug(X110 and X120 by GM

nomenclature) for the left and right headbeams should be an (8) pin

harness for each side, the hi-beam supply voltage for the headlight

assembly should be the white wire in the harness, pin out C based on the

diagrams attached,

 

You Da Man! Thank you! That's perfect!

 

Now depending on what the current draw of the additional lighting is, you may be able to just tap into the supply voltage directly if the current draw is low enough and there is sufficient capacity on the wire. Wiring diagram shows the hi beam supply voltage on a 10 amp fuse, if you don't have enough capacity on stock wires to do that, you can pull the supply line voltage as your relay signal wire then grab the power from somewhere else with more capacity.

 

Exactly--most any lights that will add anything with the brights on will be more than 10 amps. It's used as a signal wire only. Here are some very generic instructions from KC showing how it's usually done:

 

http://www.kchilites.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/6315-web.pdf

 

For driving lights with that harness, the white wire is connected to some 12V source that comes on with your brights (with older systems the + side of the bright bulb itself was usually used). That way even with the switch on, when you dim your lights (or shut off the vehicle, etc) the lights shut off. That's how driving lights should be. And while different states will have different laws, etc, I'm fully OK with a bazillion candlepower when you're the only one on the road, just as long as you dim them quickly when another car approaches.

 

Using the same harness for fog lights, the white wire connects to the dim bulb, which on an older car will shut them off when you turn on the brights (like most factory setups). While it may be technically illegal in some states to leave them on all the time, they really won't bother anybody (as long as they're true fog lights and properly aimed). If you want them on all the time, you can simply tie the white wire to any ignition activated source but they'll be on in the daytime with that setup. If you want them on all the time your lights are on, you can simply tie the white wire to one of the side marker lamps, etc, or any other light that is on all the time your lights are on. That way they come on only at night when your auto headlights come on.

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