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DIY: HID to LED – It’s Time To Make The Switch

Chris Hamilton . January 30, 2019 . How to
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The original goal was to get rid of the dull yellow glow from the factory installed Halogen light using HID headlights with a long life warranty. Even if they go out, we can just replace them for free right? Unfortunately these year Silverado’s had some serious flicker issues which would cause only one headlight bulb to not turn on randomly. After a few wasted days at car accessory shops getting free replacements installed, we decided to cut our losses and try the new bulb on the block. HID lights are quickly being pushed out of the market thanks to the every evolving LED technology in today’s latest and greatest products. Touting the ability to increase your driving visibility by a factor of 3 with a cool pure white glow. This simple plug and play bulb from Underground Lighting is a 40-watt 6000-lumens upgrade to our factory installed headlight bulbs. The included parts are covered by a one-year warranty and Underground Lighting promises a more cost effective product than the rest.

Engineered with a fully adjustable socket base for 360-degrees of angle light gives the ability to adjust them for lowered and lifted trucks alike. If you want to get super technical about it, perfect thermal temperature management is achieved by utilizing both a red copper heat pipe inside a 6063 aluminum shell and heat dissipation is managed using an enclosed waterproof high-speed turbo fan. It sounds like two little turbos under your hood!

Since we are giving our headlight performance some love it would be silly not to address the oxidation that is forming on the housings. Sure we could order some cool aftermarket units but why waste the money? We spent about 45 minutes and around ten bucks in supplies to give them a factory finish. Follow along as we buff and brighten the headlights on our 2011 Chevy Silverado and don’t be afraid to spend the weekend doing the same.

Source:
Underground Lighting

With an aluminum casing and internal red copper heat pipe, these 40-watt, 6000-lumen LED headlights stay dependable, cool and bright in any environment. Less energy and more light output makes LED bulbs an obvious choice for anyone in the market.

 

Removing the old HID reminds us of how annoying they were to install. Can you believed we needed all this for one bulb!
These bulbs have a fully adjustable socket base for 360-degrees of angle light gives the ability to adjust them for lowered and lifted trucks.
The new LED bulbs are designed to work with your factory plugs with absolutely no wires needing to be cut. An additional anti-flicker module was added so the driving lights come on every time.

No point in adding new lights if the headlight housing is to oxidized for it to shine through. A combination of rubbing compound and elbow grease can clean these up in no time.
The first step is to knock off the heavy oxidation first using some 400-grit sandpaper we picked up at the dollar store. It will seem like you’re just making it worse but we can assure you that it will clear up if you follow the steps. Be sure to use water constantly to avoid deep scratches.
Using our Adam’s Polishes buffing wheel we spent about 15-minutes and approximately six-squirts of Adams Heavy Correcting Compound rubbing out the hazey scratches. Use some force and protect your paint with some tape.

Next we used Adam’s Correcting Polish for another 15-minutes to clear and polish the lens.

A final wipe and it’s obvious real quick just how easy it was.