Headlights

[Tic Wilson]

We have a 2005 Monterrey.  We avoid driving in the dark because the headlights are so dim.  The lens covers are foggy also.  We have polished them and they get foggy again fairly quickly.  Has anyone put brighter bulbs in?  How have others handled this issue?

[John Harris]

You might try to look up the "Beaver Headlight fix" on You Tube. There is a video made by one of our members to get brighter head lights.

[Bill Sprague]

The issue is that the source wire for the headlights goes through the switch at the dash and there is a voltage drop there.  The fix is to reroute the wiring through an inexpensive pair of relays.  It is not hard to do and there is a noticeable difference.

One club member had Beaver Coach Sales do it for him and the result looked exactly like what Roy Mueller did on the video.

1,192 have watched part one and 585 have also watched part 2!  I'm about half done editing Mandy's history video from 7 Feathers.  It may be more interesting to more people.  We will have to see what the ratings do.

Brighter Beaver Headlights Part 1:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmYyoILEhMY

Brighter Beaver Headlights Part 2:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIXez9bQNY0

3M makes a good headlight polishing kit that uses an electric drill.  Maguires makes headlight polish.  Both are easy to find in most auto parts stores.  I've used both and have to do it about once a year.  

[Tic Wilson]

Thanks for all the info.  We will check it out !!!

[Larry Fritz]

I think the beaver headlight fix is the way to go and it solves the brightness issue.

A few years ago, I changed our bulbs to the Silver ULTRA's and that did help some. This past year I installed the Beaver Headlight Fix which really solved the problem completely.

I also found my lights were not aimed high enough on high beams. That did not help night driving either! Aligning the  headlights lights is something you might want to do as well. It also helped.

Now I can see at night should I ever need to drive after dark.

Larry

[Joel Ashley]

As Bill notes, the idea is to maximize the voltage that reaches the lamps, which the factory configuration fails to accomplish.  A couple of relays and a little rewiring does the job, but you do need to know what to do where.

It didn't cost that much to have BCS do it for us.  I entertained doing it myself as per Roy and Bill's video, but since we were having other work done at Bend I just had them do it while we were there;  their experience made it relatively fast (and reliable), and I could do other things with my time.

Joel