Sounds like a great idea!
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| KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=91650 |
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| Author: | casm [ Thu Aug 27, 2020 12:08 pm ] |
| Post subject: | KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
As pretty much everyone with a KJ knows, the stock headlight output - while not terrible - isn't the greatest, either. Further, there're no good drop-in replacement options for improving lighting. Because of this, I'm planning on drawing up some adapter rings that will allow use of a standard 7" headlight mounting bracket of the type found all over Amazon, eBay, etc. Is anyone else potentially interested in a set? I'm hoping that if this makes it to manufacturing, there are enough takers to drive the cost down. |
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| Author: | lfhoward [ Thu Aug 27, 2020 12:31 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
I have a KK but I think this is a good idea for the KJ folks. |
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| Author: | WWDiesel [ Thu Aug 27, 2020 1:48 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
Sounds like a great idea!
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| Author: | layback40 [ Thu Aug 27, 2020 8:08 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
Always good to make lights better. Biggest problem is plastic lights. If you put brighter globes in, you risk melting them. In years gone by you could just put a pair of 90/150w globes in & then you could see. I suspect HID & LED get hot as they have such large heat sinks on them. Those of us that drive on the other side of the road cant use lights designed for the USA as they dip to the wrong side. There are a lot of good ones out of the EU but dont fit a KJ. I just have a pair of 150w driving lights that come on with high beam. |
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| Author: | casm [ Thu Aug 27, 2020 11:55 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
layback40 wrote: Always good to make lights better. Biggest problem is plastic lights. If you put brighter globes in, you risk melting them. In years gone by you could just put a pair of 90/150w globes in & then you could see. I suspect HID & LED get hot as they have such large heat sinks on them. Good points. Some LEDs definitely do get warm, but typically not to the point of melting anything in their vicinity. Having said that, with LED headlamps most are either cooled actively (fans) or passively (heatsinking). Frankly, I much prefer heatsinks over fans in LED lights simply because a heatsink shouldn't be as much of a risk for failure as a fan - and as long as the heatsink is capable of dissipating the heat generated by the bulb, then everything should be fine. Quote: Those of us that drive on the other side of the road cant use lights designed for the USA as they dip to the wrong side. There are a lot of good ones out of the EU but dont fit a KJ. Understood re: RHD vs. LHD beam dipping - I remember having to tape off part of my lights when going from Ireland onto the Continent or they'd blind oncoming traffic. Remembering to remove the tape after getting back usually took until the first night drive when I wondered why my lights were suddenly so awful  That said, the approach I'm taking is an adapter ring that will allow the use of any preferred headlamp mount and 7-inch sealed-beam-style light. This would make RHD or LHD a non-issue, since any light suitable for the locale can be used. The basic idea is to mimic the shape of the mounting points on the rear of the headlamps and provide a vertical surface for the headlamp mounts to attach to. From there, whatever fits your needs can be used. Quote: I just have a pair of 150w driving lights that come on with high beam. Which are excellent (I miss the Hellas I had on one my Subaru Brats), but I would be *so* immediately written tickets for that if I used them it's not even funny 
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| Author: | Lancer [ Sat Aug 29, 2020 10:36 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
I would definitely be interest. The ability to fit a pair of good led headlight units would be worth the expense. |
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| Author: | Baristaman [ Sat Aug 29, 2020 4:55 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
Is be keen. I'm running led globes and they are good but not good enough. Keen to get something sorted Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk |
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| Author: | casm [ Sat Aug 29, 2020 5:25 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
Cool, we've got some interest At some point during the week, I'll hike over to the junkyard and pull a pair of headlamps. If I'm reading the parts fiche correctly, there were no differences in mounting between RHD and LHD, and I'll double-check that '05-up lights work with '04-down. The local pull-a-part says that they have a pair of 2002s, an '03, '05, and '07 in inventory right now, so assuming that nothing gets crushed between now and when I can make it over there it should be relatively easy to do a quick interchange check. |
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| Author: | casm [ Sat Sep 05, 2020 7:37 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
Little bit of an update on this. Since starting in on looking into making the adapters, a couple of things have become apparent:
What this means is that there are potentially four different types of mounting arrangements used for the headlamps. I can verify '02-'04 and '05-'07 without height adjusters since those are what were used in this part of the world. However, the chances of getting my hands on any headlamps that were designed to be used with height adjusters (e.g., EU models) are slim to nonexistent. Right now I'm looking at possibly using photogrammetric 3D scanning to create the initial model. The benefits are that this would result in creating files that could be 3D printed / cut via water jet, plasma, laser, CNC, etc. The downside is that it'll take more time to get to since there are some things I'll need to build to make it workable. I'm hoping to have time to get to the junkyard either Monday or Tuesday. That should give me a chance to pick up some headlight buckets and going from there. |
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| Author: | cwmdiesel [ Sat Sep 05, 2020 8:47 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
Im interested and also work for a company that has a u pull it yard so let me know what you need |
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| Author: | casm [ Fri Sep 25, 2020 1:38 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
It looks like today was the lucky day The junkyard had a 2006 with both headlights still in the general vicinity of the vehicle - one was being used as a hood prop; the other was under the Chevy pickup next to it. This means I now have samples to work with, so can start putting some actual effort (though it will be sporadic) into seeing what's doable. Only grabbed the mounting buckets since those are the only pieces that are really needed. What they didn't have were any 2002-2004 models with headlights, largely because all three of the vehicles that fit that description had been in front-end collisions. I didn't want to try to test interchange on bent bodies, so still have no idea if it's possible between early and late KJs. Also, from studying the buckets, I may have been overthinking how to approach this. As a result, it looks as though there's a possibility of this being a DIY modification rather than something that needs to have a special part made. It'll also circumvent the LHD / RHD beam dipping issue (and possibly the height adjuster issue as well), so am hopeful that this works the way I'd like it to once mockup parts start arriving in the next few days. |
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| Author: | casm [ Thu Oct 01, 2020 7:54 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
Previews of coming attractions First test fitting:   Still have a few things to sort out, so don't want to describe how everything goes together quite yet, but I will say this: as seen, things are looking promising. Hoping to have this completed & written up over the weekend. |
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| Author: | casm [ Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:58 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
Just a quick update to chart progress on this: Been going through a lot of trial-and-error fitting of headlamp components (notably the bezel around the light itself) to try to figure out what does and doesn't work. This has been moving slower than I'd like as there's a lot of order / receive / fit / return / go back to the drawing board involved, but it is letting me find out how much space there is to work with. Summary: a surprising amount, but with some definite limitations relative to the headlight bucket, headlight itself, and the grille. One interesting discovery was that the diameter of the headlight bucket (minus mounting tabs, so just the circular part) is almost exactly the same as a standard 7" headlight trim bezel. From poking around in there, it almost looks as though there may have been a plan early on in the KJ's development to use 7" headlights, probably in a manner similar to how the TJ did it. That's just speculation on my behalf, but it seems plausible. Oh, and one other thing - we should have a 3D printer turning up here in the next week or two. That should make prototyping the actual adapters a much faster proposition; I'm hoping to have something final by the end of the year. |
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| Author: | WWDiesel [ Mon Oct 19, 2020 11:46 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
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| Author: | My66dodge [ Fri Oct 23, 2020 10:02 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
It would be nice if we could also use something like this https://www.quadratec.com/p/quadratec/g ... rangler-jk Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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| Author: | casm [ Sat Oct 24, 2020 9:25 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
My66dodge wrote: It would be nice if we could also use something like this https://www.quadratec.com/p/quadratec/g ... rangler-jk Those specific lights may be a possibility. The basic idea is to make the adapter rings as universal as possible, but there are almost certainly going to be 7" lights on the market that might not fit for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, I simply don't have the resources to test as broad a range of the lights on the market as I would like, so the only way to find out which ones might fall into that category will be by trial and error. My suggestion would be to order lights from somewhere with a really good return policy. In other news: the 3D printer arrived yesterday. That'll be set up over the weekend, and the first prototype adapters should follow in a week or two after it's ready - it's really just a question of how much time I can put into designing them. |
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| Author: | My66dodge [ Sat Oct 24, 2020 1:02 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
casm wrote: My66dodge wrote: It would be nice if we could also use something like this https://www.quadratec.com/p/quadratec/g ... rangler-jk Those specific lights may be a possibility. The basic idea is to make the adapter rings as universal as possible, but there are almost certainly going to be 7" lights on the market that might not fit for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, I simply don't have the resources to test as broad a range of the lights on the market as I would like, so the only way to find out which ones might fall into that category will be by trial and error. My suggestion would be to order lights from somewhere with a really good return policy. In other news: the 3D printer arrived yesterday. That'll be set up over the weekend, and the first prototype adapters should follow in a week or two after it's ready - it's really just a question of how much time I can put into designing them. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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| Author: | cobalt72 [ Wed Nov 18, 2020 3:41 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
Looking forward to seeing the final looks and fitment! |
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| Author: | casm [ Wed Nov 18, 2020 12:26 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
cobalt72 wrote: Looking forward to seeing the final looks and fitment! It's creeping along  As it turns out, the 3D printer was giving bad prints but in weird intermittent ways - the printer that we had received had a bad nozzle heater and it took a few days to figure out that that was the issue.We should have one turning up the end of this week; the manufacturer warranteed it, so hopefully we won't be sent another flaky one. |
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| Author: | cobalt72 [ Wed Nov 18, 2020 11:42 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: KJ 7-inch headlight adapters - any interest? |
casm wrote: cobalt72 wrote: Looking forward to seeing the final looks and fitment! It's creeping along As it turns out, the 3D printer was giving bad prints but in weird intermittent ways - the printer that we had received had a bad nozzle heater and it took a few days to figure out that that was the issue.We should have one turning up the end of this week; the manufacturer warranteed it, so hopefully we won't be sent another flaky one. The 3D printer will be very useful in the future once fully mastered. Sending your more luck |
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