Hi All:
I purchased the bumper with fog lights, available from multiple vendors for $299.95, for my 1978 K-10. I purchased it from a vendor I have used before and from whom I have gotten good service. I now have it on and will review it here. I'll post pics in this thread once I get a chance to take them outside.
The bumper is a stock bumper with fog lights cut into it. The shape and outline of the bumper is an exact match to what was on the truck, the steel is of the same gauge, and it has the same cutouts along the bottom, jack holes, and mounting holes. It looks like it was stamped on the same tooling.
The chrome is beautiful, no scratches, bubbles, discolorations or other imperfections. The brackets for the lights were welded onto the lower edge of the back side of the bumper prior to chroming, and are chromed as well. What looks in the illustrations like they might be stamped ridges around the fog light openings in the bumper are actually conformal bezels clamped from the back They fit tight to the bumper and the chrome on them is a match for the bumper in color and quality.
The lights appear to be quality lights, and they are adjustable in every which way by loosening mounting screws and rotating things or moving them in slotted mounting holes on the back side. Some of the screws can be a little hard to get at for aiming, but it's workable. BTW, the hardware is all metric.
I got new mounting hardware at the same time, and it mounted without incident. I had the local shop do it because it is a two-man job if you don't want to scratch it, and the missus is no help in these situations. Non-mechanical person.
The switch provided is a mini-rocker with a red pilot light. The mini-rocker mounting bracket provided is the cheap plastic one you see in all the auto parts stores. I purchased a metal mounting bracket for a full-size rocker on the net. I also bought a full-size rocker with a green pilot light; to me, red means "Danger, Will Robinson!" I mounted the bracket on the bottom of the dash between the brake release handle and the steering column. There were already two holes there from some prior installation of something or other by a PO, and the bracket I bought had the same hole spacing.
For the wiring, they provide a complete wiring harness, but it has its anomalies. For one, they show the dashboard switch wired all the way back to the battery. Now, this is to run a relay and the pilot lamp, and the ground bus and fuse block are within a foot of my switch location, so I jumpered the switch to the ground bus and fuse block and just ran the relay coil wire from the switch to the coil. The relay wire provided was too short, and it was 18 AWG; my existing looming is pretty full, so I ran a 20 AWG wire from the switch to the relay, which I did not mount but simply lay on top of the battery where the headlight relay is already.
Finally, the harness for the lights had short pigtails for the ground wire to ground to sheet metal, and the hot wires were splice into one strand for the run to the relay. I spliced extensions on to the ground wires to run all the way back to the ground point on the radiator support next to the batter, and ran the hot wires as separate strands back to the relay. I loomed this wiring across behind the bumper, above the frame rails and the center radiator support bracket, then up the firewall and through the grommeted hole where the horn wire goes through.
The lights fired up immediately when first tried. I plugged the hot wire to the switch into the IGN socket on the fuse block so I can't inadvertently leave them on and kill the battery. I can also leave them on over holiday weekends and on longer trips, so they act as Daylight Running Lights (DRL) without me having to remember to turn them on and off.
When I first went out with them, they were way too low; I couldn't even see the spots they hit on the pavement from the cab. I thought a moment about how to aim them, and then did the following. I measured the height off the pavement of the center of the beam right at the lights (26"). I then aimed them so that they were at centered 24" about four feet in front of the bumper. That will put the center of the beam on the pavement 52' in front of the truck. I went out and tried them again. Perfect.
The beam pattern is a wide strip of light, with a sharp cutoff both top and bottom. The strip is about 5" wide (up and down) at four feet in front of the truck. This fills in the light under the headlights, lighting the pavement from just above the closest pavement I can see from the driver's position up to and into the low-beam headlight pattern. With the main lights in the park position, I can drive on the fog lights alone. When the truck shakes or bumps, the light pattern does bounce a little bit, not much, because the light brackets are not a full u-shaped bail anchored top and bottom, but a simple bracket.
Overall, I'm very pleased. They look good, like they were stock, sort of like the parking lights in the bumper on some years. The bumper itself is of the same quality as stock and is the stock shape and all, so it doesn't affect the looks switching to the one with the fog lights. The lights themselves operate fine and fill in the light pattern on the highway to pick up the near stuff, and are sufficient to drive with by themselves for lower speeds, such as in fog. The wiring harness could use a little more thought, but that was an easy fix with a little wire, heat shrink tubing, and crimp-on spade connectors.
I'll try to get some pics up pretty soon.
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