How-To: fix your Headlight and fog light aim!

[skierd]

I picked up my 2021 STX Tuesday night and like many of you I noticed immediately that the forward lighting isn’t great. IIHS rated the halogen headlights as Poor due to a lack of distance projection both down the road and to the sides.

Most people immediately think “These lights suck! Time to throw parts at it and try to fix it!” But what if they didn’t actually suck. What if they just weren’t aimed properly?

As delivered:

Lows only

Fogs and lows

High beams

Ok, let’s investigate. The standard for fog lights at our truck’s height says the cutoff should be 3” below the height of the bulb at 25 feet. I can only pull in 15 feet at my garage at work, but it’s clear the fogs are no where near 3” below the stock 24” light center!

Headlight aiming is explained in the owners manual, but basically the top of the hot spot should be at the same height as the lamp center at 25ft. On my truck that’s roughly 40”. Measure your truck, then measure to the top of the hot spot on the right side of the pattern. My trucks lights were at 38” at 15ft, also low.

Use these adjusters to put the headlights where the need to be with a #2 Phillips screwdriver

an example of how I made my aiming marks, bigger is more accurate but this worked for me.

the adjusters for the halogen fogs took a 1/2” wrench to adjust

Drivers adjusted fog, passenger as built

the results?

Fogs only:

Lows only:

High beams:

Without and with fogs, it’s hard to see in the photos but the fogs actually have some side projection now and somewhat help with corners. They are no where near as wide as the TRD Off Road fogs that were on my Tacoma, but it’s still useful.

I have no reason to believe similar improvements can’t be made with LED equipped trucks, but I don’t have one so I can’t say.

I will say that I am more than pleasantly surprised at how much better the headlights work now, to the point that I think I’ll be fine without auxiliary lights once I upgrade the stock long life type bulbs with high performance halogens:
Fogs: stock 9140 40w ~600 lumens to H10/9155 55w ~950 lumens
Low beams: stock H11 ~1100 lumens to Phillips standard H9 bulbs trimmed to fit ~2200 lumens
High beams: stock 9005 bulbs ~1800 lumens to Phillips standard 9011 ~2350 lumens

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[Graygoose2021]

awesome write up!!!!!

 

[RLTW175]

Very instructive, thanks for that. I had to adjust my headlights after levelling the truck. Had no clue you could adjust the fogs, but I'll be doing that this week. Because they are essentially useless as aimed now.

 

[hotrodmex]

Found this write-up looking to verify the process for my LED fogs (different adjuster), and just wanted to drop in a possible tip.

There is likely a screwdriver interface in this lower tube that turns the gear teeth on the outside of the larger 1/2" hex. Helpful if you don't want to pull back your fender liner.

 

[skwrtle]

Amazing write up!

 

[DT444T]

My LEDs were aimed a hair HIGH from the factory. With a trailer on, there was virtually no distinction between the low and high beams. I lowered them and they still work great on low, and now I get high-beamed by other drivers a LOT less.

 

[Yason84]

Happy New Year! Have you done replace those factory bulbs with the high performance halogens? Did it make a huge difference switching to a modded H9 and 9011? How about in the fog lights? Did the 55 watt bulbs melt the housing at all? Just wondering if the LEDs and 12” screen are worth upgrading to a 302a or going for the 301a…

 

[Golf Cart Wizard]

Just did the same mods to my truck. The fog lights were pointed straight at the ground from the factory, absolutely useless, however my headlights were actually aimed too HIGH. The cutoff was above eye level on some smaller SUVs, and that was UNloaded.

After reaiming I still wanted to improve the dingy yellow light output. Based on the stock beam pattern LED bulbs are not an option, the beam pattern lacks the focus and cutoff necessary for LEDs. Even if LED bulbs could perfectly recreate the stock beam pattern (which they won’t) it would still be unusable. So I went with the H9/9011 upgrade. The bulbs I got were Hella H9 2.0, Philips crystal vision 9045, and standard Philips 9011. I’ve seen people speculate that new 9011 don’t have the true HIR coating and are just high watt filaments, but the glass had an iridescent look to it unlike standard bulbs so I don’t think that’s true.

There was certainly a huge improvement with the better bulbs, you can see here lows/fogs and high beams. Upgrade bulbs on driver side.

The new bulbs have a much whiter light output and a fuller beam. Actually driving is where the difference is most noticeable, vision is much better due to the better color quality. No increase in glare, looking at the lamps themselves you can’t really tell the difference.

These headlights would be totally sufficient if Ford would use the better bulbs at the factory, but that makes it harder to convince people to pony up for LEDs I guess.

 

[Davexxxx]

This is a neat write up. Thank you very much.

I have the OEM LEDs and haven't noticed any deficiencies but I haven't really driven at night much. Come winter, that will obviously change.

 

[cyulst2]

Great write up - glad it got bumped up!

 

[20acrefarms]

I picked up my 2021 STX Tuesday night and like many of you I noticed immediately that the forward lighting isn’t great. IIHS rated the halogen headlights as Poor due to a lack of distance projection both down the road and to the sides.

Most people immediately think “These lights suck! Time to throw parts at it and try to fix it!” But what if they didn’t actually suck. What if they just weren’t aimed properly?

As delivered:

Lows only

Fogs and lows

High beams

Ok, let’s investigate. The standard for fog lights at our truck’s height says the cutoff should be 3” below the height of the bulb at 25 feet. I can only pull in 15 feet at my garage at work, but it’s clear the fogs are no where near 3” below the stock 24” light center!

Headlight aiming is explained in the owners manual, but basically the top of the hot spot should be at the same height as the lamp center at 25ft. On my truck that’s roughly 40”. Measure your truck, then measure to the top of the hot spot on the right side of the pattern. My trucks lights were at 38” at 15ft, also low.

Use these adjusters to put the headlights where the need to be with a #2 Phillips screwdriver

an example of how I made my aiming marks, bigger is more accurate but this worked for me.

the adjusters for the halogen fogs took a 1/2” wrench to adjust

Drivers adjusted fog, passenger as built

the results?

Fogs only:

Lows only:

High beams:

Without and with fogs, it’s hard to see in the photos but the fogs actually have some side projection now and somewhat help with corners. They are no where near as wide as the TRD Off Road fogs that were on my Tacoma, but it’s still useful.

I have no reason to believe similar improvements can’t be made with LED equipped trucks, but I don’t have one so I can’t say.

I will say that I am more than pleasantly surprised at how much better the headlights work now, to the point that I think I’ll be fine without auxiliary lights once I upgrade the stock long life type bulbs with high performance halogens:
Fogs: stock 9140 40w ~600 lumens to H10/9155 55w ~950 lumens
Low beams: stock H11 ~1100 lumens to Phillips standard H9 bulbs trimmed to fit ~2200 lumens
High beams: stock 9005 bulbs ~1800 lumens to Phillips standard 9011 ~2350 lumens

what mark did you use to determine centre of the headlight?

 

[Lricaud81]

?

 

[KTM753]

Ordered Phillips H9, 9011, and Wagner 9155 bulbs from Rock Auto tonight. Be here later in the week.

Is there any modifications needed to install 9011 in high beam or 9155 in fogs like there is with H9 in low beams?

Edit: 9155 Fog bulbs were plug and play.

 

[STL04]

Random note.

I swapped my last F150 to the SV.4 LED bulbs and it actually improved the beam pattern, while making it 2X better than my 2022 stock quad LED from Ford.

I wish I had the stock halogen housing or the projector LED. (the stock quad LED isn't anything special)

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