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Hummer Knowledge Base

The Hummer Knowledge Base

Lights

Hella European Technology High Performance Headlamps (that's what Hella calls them) The 7in round units that are a bolt in to our hummers is p/n 70476. The lamp comes packaged with an H4 60/55W bulb capsule. If you just want to slap these babies in then stay with the 60/55W bulbs 60W high beam / 55W low beam). These just about max out the vehicle wiring and stock switch. If you were to use 90/75 or higher with stock wiring then there would be so much voltage drop through the wiring and switch they may actually appear dimmer than 60/55's. The 100/90's may even smoke the stock switch and surely the PIAA H4 150/100 would. FYI; I have used Hella's with 100/90's and a relay in my Cherokee for years and don't think the extra work for wiring etc was worth it for a very minimal improvement in light output with shorter filament life. The Hummer has 60/55's. Oh BTW, some of the 70476 units come with an extra 7W parking lamp inserted and these can be wired for daytime rumming lights through an IGN switched circuit.

I have seen another of our group explain the 70476 lamps have a light patterm that looks like ____/ when shined on a wall. This is due to carving on the lens for vehicles with left-hand drive. I know the right-hand drive countries have Hella's with lens carving for light that shines like \_____ . There is also a motorcycle lamp from Hella with carving for a pattern like \____/. Sooooo maybe the trick is to find a British sports car mag and order some from England for the left side headlamp and use a 70476 in the right one. I have tried motorcycle units a long time ago and eventually changed back to the automotive units. Sorry I don't have any p/n's for these.

I purchased my 70476's from a sports car shop for $55 each (ouch) because of time. They are mail-orderable for around $40 the last time I checked. Try 4 WHEEL PARTS Wholesalers at 800-421-1050 or Desert Rat at 800-528-3402 or 520-790-8502. I have oredred from these guys before. Also Hella advises Pep Boys carries their line but I have only seen the typical small fog/driving lamp kits there, maybe they can order the good stuff.

I would advise using a relay for no more than 150W total for safety sake and ability to use smaller wire gauges. 150W divided by 12V = 12.5Amps which works well using 14AWG wires. I use a $6 Radio Shack p/n 275-226 relay rated at 30A. This a pin compatible relay to a version sold by Hella too. This gives a 50% margin of rating which prevents the contacts from welding shut as they like to do when used near 100% of rating. Remember a cold lamp may draw 4x as much as normal for the instant between turn on and warm when lit. Another benefit would be for example if you had 4 100W lamps running off individual relays (and fuses !) and one burned out due a rock smash, the other 3 would remain lit as happy as could be instead of smoking one big fuse or wire or relay if they were wired together.

An easy way to get the 'signal' from the low or high headlamp beams for a relay is to connect directly to the headlamp wire under the hood (you are there anyway wiring to the relay and batteries) and run the Ground wire through the firewall to the new lamp switches. I have connected to the wires in steering columns in other vehicles and swear this is far more difficult on the human body and has a potential to mess up a lot of vehicle wiring if you are not familiar with the vehicle wiring system. There is one minus to swithcing your relays via the ground circuit -- no dashboard indicator lamp. I use a DPDT switch (a switch with two circuits for the electrically challenged out there) and use one circuit for the relay and the other for a seperate indicator lamp.


Allan received his rear lights and buckets last week as I did, and mine are done and work great. A few hints;

  1. remove the bucket rivets by first using a drift punch to drive out the center steel pins from the outside-in, then drill off the heads with a 1/4 in drill. Hold or clamp the 3 fingers of the rivet inside the back fenderwells befoer drilling. Removing the rear side marker buckets makes wiring access a bit easier. (remove the #67 bulbs BEFORE wanging away on the rivets.. both of mine broke the filaments)
  2. the military connector is anything but standard and certainly not compatible with the vehicle harness so you will eventuall need to cut it off.
    WAIT ! - use the terminal marking in splicing;
  3. the connector pins out as follows (A) is the ground wire (B) is the Black Out Brake (C) is the Black Out Tail (D) is the turn/brake (E) is the tail
  4. Cut the connectors off the old tail light leaving a couple of inches of pigtail.
  5. the old light has a two pin plug with a brown wire = tail light and a white wire = backup.
  6. the one pin plug has a red wire = brake / turn
  7. splice red to (D) / brown to (E) / white to (B) and (C)
  8. be carefull about the three ground wires attached to the old tail lamp stud. you will need to ground these wires and the (A) wire to a new place on the body or frame.
  9. recommend using #10-32 stainless hardware to mount the new buckets and remount the sidemarkers.
  10. recommend 3/8 UNC x 3/4 Inch brass or stainless bolts for the light housing
  11. recommend nickle anti-sieze an all hardware when re-assemble including the lens screws into the housing.
  12. use a 1156 for the brake bulb, a 67 for the tail light bulb and 98's for the two blackout positions.
  13. cut the heat staked edges holding the blackout V shades inside the lens cap and the shades will fall out leaving clear lenses for the back-up indicators (they won't light up much of anything but satisfy the law)

FYI Allan, AFAIK.. the blackouts white lens shades front and rear are only for vehicle spacing while in convoy and the blackout red rear is a brake light. You can do alternate wiring for your blackouts leaving the shades in place for appearance and install external floods for backup. I supplimented with a 55w trapezoid 3 x 5 inch tractor light in back mounted to the body at the lower left corner. Good Luck / Bob.B


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