changing headlights

They will bolt in. You must use the newer headlamps *and* the newer corner lights. The park/turn function is located within the main headlamp body on the newer lamps, not in the corner lamp as with the old lamps. Therefore, there is a separate sidemarker bulb in the new-style corner lamp. This must be wired in, which is not difficult to do. You can either wire it to burn steadily whenever the parking or headlamps are on (one wire to parking lamp feed, one wire to ground) or you can do the smart thing and wire it to burn steadily when the parking or headlamps are on *and* flash with the turn signals (one wire to parking lamp feed, one wire to turn signal feed, diagram at

) Ford's marginal headlamp wiring has been starving bulbs and producing dim, brownish light from the headlamps for several decades now. They've finally (in the last three years or so) started equipping their cars with decent optics, and that's a big improvement over the badly-focused beams produced by virtually all pre-'01 Fords, but the too-thin wires still starve the bulbs. Put relays in, see DS

thanks. by newer, do you mean 04? this sounds do-able now but I want to be sure before starting anything as I am the nervous and delicate type. and as usual here, good advice from DS. as to the others and their non-advice - stop that silliness right now! thanks Tom Seattle

I've been driving my friend's late 80's F-150 all week, and working nights as well (note timestamp) and I have to say that IMHO the headlights are pretty darn good as far as seeing where I'm going, at least on high beam. Of course, they're the same headlights that I hate to have behind me at night when I'm in my regular ride, as the rear window turns into this big wash of white light.

nate

!Peeve: got a call from the shop I dumped my Porsche at, they managed to get rid of the hideous rattling noise from my A/C just by replacing a few broken bolts. (apparently the bolts that hold all the accessories on tend to back out and subsequently break. You'd have thunk that after all these years of using bolts they would have figured out how to keep this from happening, but according to the mechanic, it's actually fairly common on the 944 series.)

Peeve: the fact that I didn't find this myself.

?Peeve: they were unable to reproduce the dying-CV-esque noise that originally prompted me to drop it off at the shop with a side note "oh, by the way, see if you can fix my A/C..."

High mounting height lets even cruddy optics show you the way passably well. I'm guessing you haven't had to contend with much rain, fog or snow!

DS

I don't recall the exact starting year for the new-style headlamps, but it's very easy to figure it out: Go to

(searchable used auto parts nationwide) and search 2004 Ford Ranger headlight assembly. The search results will only include identical years. Results are listed in decreasing order of price, with the "new" lights at the top of the list being aftermarket stuff from Taiwan.

Makes perfectly good sense. You *shouldn't* have a problem installing the newer lamps, but it's been a few years since I closely compared the front end arrangement of the Rangers in question.

DS