Installing H9 Bulbs in Quad Headlights

I took the time to install H9 bulbs in my quad headlights. I took photos along the way to show people the steps to make it easier to do.

First of all, this is the light output of the old H11 bulbs.



First step is to remove the baffle that goes in front of the radiator behind the grill. There are push in retainers that have to be removed, shown by the red arrows. There are three per side, about in the same locations.




Then you need to remove the four bolts that hold the grill in place. There are two on each side in the same positions.



The grill pulls out once these bolts are removed, but it must be pulled up and forward at the bottom to remove these clips from the mounting locations shown in the next post (yellow arrow).



Continued......

Next is to remove the bolts that hold the headlight assembly in place. There are two on the front, next to the grill. (Red Arrows)



Then there is a access door on the inside of the fender, a small push clip, the kind that has a center pin that you pull and the outer clip comes out. Once the door is open there is a bolt that holds the headlight assembly from there.



Once you pull that bolt, there is a lock tab that has to be pushed up to release the headlight. I took the picture from the front so that it is more visible, it almost has to be felt for as it is behind the bolt location from the access opening in the fender well.



The lock tab holds around the end of the bolt tower on the rear of the assembly. The red arrow at the top. The square box is the access opening. The arrow at the bottom is where there is a push stud that goes into a hole in the support where the bolt is from the rear.



The large round access cover is where the low beam bulb, the H11 that will be removed.

I borrowed this photo from another thread as I neglected to take a shot of the bulb socket that needs to be modified. As shown there is a tab at the top of the H9 bulb that needs to be cut out. I did mine with a sharp utility knife.



Here is a picture of the old H11 bulb in place and the new H9 bulb in place. The three tabs on the bulb side of the socket are slightly different on the H9, but if you use some finesse, you can get the H9 into the socket of the housing without to much trouble.

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Once you have the bulb in the housing, and the access cover back on, just reverse the process to re-install the housing on the truck. Then you use the same procedure on the opposite side.

Here is a pic of one completed and one not....



Once you have completed both sides and re-installed the assemblies, you just need to put the grill back in place and then the baffle and your done.

This doesn't really show the difference from the stock bulbs, but they are definitely brighter white. I tried to catch about the same level of light that was in the before picture. I can definitely tell the difference at night.



I hope this helps to make the job easier, I noted the things that I found that challenged me a bit along the way. This was done on my '10 1500 truck, but I suspect that they are all basically similar.

Nice write up. I'm running H9's in my lows on my '14 and it is a much bigger improvement than can really be seen in the pictures. Best mod I've done along with the tailgate assist.

Thanks

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Thank you. I would have never figured out that lock tab without your help. My H9s are much brighter.

Yeah, that had me puzzled for about 10 minutes.

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You can get these instead of slicing your finger, or messing with the bulb. I found it to be a pain in the ass to try and get that notch off. However the link below is the ONLY place I can find H11 to H9 adapters. Amazon has extenders that have a misleading description, you can tell from the pictures they will not accept a H9 bulb.

H8 or H11 to H9 | Innovative Wiring LLC

If anyone knows of a cheaper or easier solution post it up!

Jmhm17 said:

You can get these instead of slicing your finger, or messing with the bulb. I found it to be a pain in the ass to try and get that notch off. However the link below is the ONLY place I can find H11 to H9 adapters. Amazon has extenders that have a misleading description, you can tell from the pictures they will not accept a H9 bulb.

H8 or H11 to H9 | Innovative Wiring LLC

If anyone knows of a cheaper or easier solution post it up!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link! I'm changing all the bulbs on my quads and fogs, this is perfect.

Why not just put h11 hid bulbs like I did?

2012 Ram Hemi

Ecofx86 said:

Why not just put h11 hid bulbs like I did?

2012 Ram Hemi

Click to expand...

A lot of folks don't want the extra wiring and complication of an HID kit. This bulb swap doubles the light output with no extra wiring. Just as reliable as stock, and done in a few minutes.

2 questions for those that have done this....

Do you still have 'light cutoff' like you do with a standard bulb?

How long have you been running H9s and have you seen any signs of overloading the factory wiring?

I just installed some LED bulbs in my lows and fogs. They are plenty bright but the lows have zero cutoff.

Thanks!!

I didn't do my fogs, but I did have the H9's in my lows. I have non-projector quads. The light pattern seems the same as stock, just much brighter. Haven't had anyone flashing their lights at me. I've had them in over a month now with no issues. The stock quads were about useless with the H11 bulb in them. Now I don't feel any need to upgrade the headlights any further.

NYCruiser said:

I didn't do my fogs, but I did have the H9's in my lows. I have non-projector quads. The light pattern seems the same as stock, just much brighter. Haven't had anyone flashing their lights at me. I've had them in over a month now with no issues. The stock quads were about useless with the H11 bulb in them. Now I don't feel any need to upgrade the headlights any further.

Click to expand...

That's what I needed to know. I am going to run the LEDs for a while but its good to know that there is another option for lows besides HIDs in projectors.

If you don't have factory projectors, then this bulb swap makes a lot of sense. By the time you swap to projector fixtures and add in the HID kit it gets a little involved and costly. This is quick and dirty and the lights become acceptable. It almost seems as if the non-projector headlights were actually designed to run H9's in them. They just seem like normal headlights like I'm used to in other cars I've owned once you swap the bulbs.

Heres my h11 hids. The kit for the most part was plug n play. I did have to add capacitor to the relay to stop it from vibrating.

2012 Ram Hemi

I forgot to add this is without projectors. In the stock headlamps. No the light does not blind on coming traffic. That's 5k btw.




134 bucks plus 7 bucksFor the capacitor

2012 Ram Hemi

Nice. Got a link to which bulbs you put in?

http://www.xenonhids.com/?gclid=CIPy49KrgsQCFQ8waQodoyIAbA


I got the 55watt digital ballast with relay.

2012 Ram Hemi

The galaxy series is the one I got.

2012 Ram Hemi