Rig my T680

[GeorgiaHybrid]

OK, finally had a chance to dig back into things and figure out what wire went to which monkey light. The cluster inputs had a 6.3 volt input on the wire so knowing how Scrap made up the harness, I used my Power probe to ground out each circuit of the six I had. Those clever engineers at KW even tagged the wires with the appropriate colored tag (amber, red and green) which made it pretty easy.

 

 

i used the cover telltale that Scrap made up for me by lightly grinding Telltale number 5 off with a Dremel but I didn't polish the underlying plastic and the light is a little dim because of it. Wish now I had gone with Telltale #7 to get a nice bright red light instead of an amber one when power to the brakes is lost.

 

Might have to see if my dealer can order up the telltales. By the way, these 6 positions are customisable by the user.by inserting a relay into the circuit to trigger the appropriate telltale in the dash. I am starting to understand why they say everything behind the KW bug on the front of the truck is an option.

[GeorgiaHybrid]

One other thing that will need to be done if you are planning on using the monitor in the dash for your cameras, the cameras must be activated in the "Advanced Menu" as noted in the manual. What they fail to tell you is the process to get to the advanced menu on the system in the manual. After talking with an engineer from PanaPacific, I found out that you must simultaneously select the Home and Brightness hard keys (not the soft keys on the screen) for more than 8 seconds to access this menu. Once you have done that, go to the second page and activate all of the cameras you are planning to install (up to 4).

 

Once that is done, you can control how they turn on/off from the regular menu system. You can select them to turn on when using the right/left turn signal ( to turn on the right/left camera) and to turn on the rear cam when you select reverse. you can only use one camera at a time with this setup but that is all I ever used anyway so it is not that big a deal for me and it cleans up the look of the dash a lot by not having a secondary monitor in place.

[Scrap]

See, you are a real new truck mechanic when you get guitar fingers but your callouses match the parting line on the RH side of your cluster! Trim tools are for sissies!

 

Sorry, I'm way behind Jack. I'm still pretty sure I'd buy my truck with the KIMS (KW battery based AC system), option auto start/stop, and option for both KIMS and starting batts to be Odyssey. It would have been real tough on weight with Georgia's truck but now with the single can aftertreatment I think it might work out alright. Put the aftertreatment RH under (behind passenger steps), put the KIMS batteries directly behind that, and go with the same kickout fairings and under sleeper fill that Georgia has.

 

That's all not to mention the TC-10 I'd have that I told him he should have waited for too.......

[GeorgiaHybrid]

I'm a few weeks behind on posting pictures on the new lights for the truck but I got a nudge in another thread tonight so here goes. I decided to replace the stock HID headlights on the truck with new projectors and bulbs from Nuke-E. The projectors added a new movable shutter triggered by the high beam circuit that allowed the HID's to help out the halogen high beams a little when activated,

 

After the install, I took several pictures showing the differences between the two sides. Going to this setup also changed the bulbs from D1s bulbs with an attached igniter to a D2s bulb with a separate igniter. Stuffing everything back into the hole proved to be a bit of a challenge but eventually, I won. Took to heart dad's advice from long ago. "Son, don't force it, get a bigger hammer".

 

Here is the original right side low beam. Notice the soft edges on the cutoff line:

 

Here is the left side with the new projector and bulb. Notice the very sharp cutoff line and the better right/left light distribution than the original bulb pattern:

 

Original high beam and low beam combined:

 

New projector with shutter open combined with the halogen high beam. Note the one hot spot in the center of the pattern. This will come in very handy squirrel hunting the woods at night. The light pattern is enlarged as a whole and lights up the road better than before

 

Here both sides are on low beams to show the difference between the new (left side) and old (right side) beam patterns:

 

And here we are with the brights on (halogens) and the shutter open on the left side:

 

I have been a little busy the past coupe of weeks on other issues but this weekend I will replace the right side projector and add to this post the new lights in all of their glory.

[BlueLghtning]

Nice, just catching up with this thread.

[Nuke-E]

Dave--

 

Are we looking at an uphill driveway? If that's flat and the hood is latched, it would appear you're aimed pretty low.

[GeorgiaHybrid]

LOL, yes a very steep driveway, I would have to drive a few miles to get to flat ground. We usually follow the pipeline they use to get sunshine back into these hills when we leave.

[Nuke-E]

Ok--good. Otherwise you'd only be finding possums, not squirrels.

[Scrap]

LOL if there are 5 guys standing around an oven with a headlamp in it you might be at a HDT rally! I don't think you'll be getting OEM away from the golfball lens for quite awhile, if ever. A tilt hood is naturally jiggly and that jiggling with a sharp cutoff makes for some horrible cutoff flicker from a distance. Aftermarket it is fine but you can't be doing that OEM. It kind of works the same from the drivers seat as every truck averages three bounces from a big bump and sharp cutoff makes a lot of guys seasick. The golfball lens softens it all as you can see and removes a ton of the cutoff dance, among many other things. But again that OEM stuff where 1000's of us all have to share. It looks like you have some pretty good RH cutoff flare too [or is it not clocked level? ] so you ought to have real good road signage. I haven't done clear lens in a truck since like 2003 but I remember snowflakes being a potential problem too. Clear lens you can count every snowflake and with the eye-light separation distance in a truck that was a whole lot of snowflakes coming at you! But that was like 15 years and 5 lamp generations ago so it probably isn't an issue anymore with todays ballasts.

 

Anyways I think it is pretty darn cool and I admit that a little piece of my dies everytime I turn on my fuzzy lights. Let us know how it goes after a month with them. I hope y'all ship to Canada because I know there are a lot of guys up there that would like a piece of them.

 

Oh, and for the grilling: Do the projector assys mount to the same carrier holes? Or did you have to adapt/drill new? I guess I'm assuming Morimoto? Did you do bi-Xenon because that was the only available kit that fit? If they built it both ways would you have still gone bi-Xenon? I guess it seems that bi-Xenon might be a bit more complexity than needed but again I've never tried it either. Just kinda wondering how you got there is all.

[GeorgiaHybrid]

Scrap, the projector uses the factory holes but you have to put the pieces into the housing separately and then assemble it. You then have the fun project of trying to fit the igniter in the housing.

 

Nuke-E is trying to find a projector that will bolt up and use the original D1s bulb. That will make life a lot easier and allow you to just replace the projector to increase the distance the high beam extends down the road.

[Nuke-E]

LOL if there are 5 guys standing around an oven with a headlamp in it you might be at a HDT rally! I don't think you'll be getting OEM away from the golfball lens for quite awhile, if ever. A tilt hood is naturally jiggly and that jiggling with a sharp cutoff makes for some horrible cutoff flicker from a distance. Aftermarket it is fine but you can't be doing that OEM. It kind of works the same from the drivers seat as every truck averages three bounces from a big bump and sharp cutoff makes a lot of guys seasick. The golfball lens softens it all as you can see and removes a ton of the cutoff dance, among many other things. But again that OEM stuff where 1000's of us all have to share. It looks like you have some pretty good RH cutoff flare too [or is it not clocked level? ] so you ought to have real good road signage. I haven't done clear lens in a truck since like 2003 but I remember snowflakes being a potential problem too. Clear lens you can count every snowflake and with the eye-light separation distance in a truck that was a whole lot of snowflakes coming at you! But that was like 15 years and 5 lamp generations ago so it probably isn't an issue anymore with todays ballasts.

 

Anyways I think it is pretty darn cool and I admit that a little piece of my dies everytime I turn on my fuzzy lights. Let us know how it goes after a month with them. I hope y'all ship to Canada because I know there are a lot of guys up there that would like a piece of them.

 

Oh, and for the grilling: Do the projector assys mount to the same carrier holes? Or did you have to adapt/drill new? I guess I'm assuming Morimoto? Did you do bi-Xenon because that was the only available kit that fit? If they built it both ways would you have still gone bi-Xenon? I guess it seems that bi-Xenon might be a bit more complexity than needed but again I've never tried it either. Just kinda wondering how you got there is all.

 

I think a lot of the reason for the sharp cutoff for OEs is making aiming less particular. At least in the light truck/car world, lots of times lights get slapped in with a pre-set aim, and it's never actually checked/adjusted on the car. I'm surprised you had trouble with snowflakes--one of the advantages of the clear lens and sharp cutoff is keeping glare down--you really don't want to light up the snowflakes above the pavement any more than you have to, so your pupils can dilate a little more and let you see what you care about. I like keeping as little light above the cutoff as possible, and would even go lower than the FMVSS108 "minimum glare" requirements if I could. And with more and more diverging diamond interchanges popping up, the flare on the right side that the standard allows is going to be quite bothersome at the limit--really should probably be more of a hockey stick shape than a boomerang.

 

I think there's a joke in there about Freightshakers too--you mean those fancy KWs/Peterbilts can't get the hood latched tight? ;-) I know of only one person in the trucking world that's had trouble with the cutoff bouncing (Brit), and that was with the United Pacific halo housings, which I think had slop in the adjuster mechanism.

 

Scrap, the projector uses the factory holes but you have to put the pieces into the housing separately and then assemble it. You then have the fun project of trying to fit the igniter in the housing.

 

Nuke-E is trying to find a projector that will bolt up and use the original D1s bulb. That will make life a lot easier and allow you to just replace the projector to increase the distance the high beam extends down the road.

 

The "golf ball" lens he's referring to is a lens with either dimples on the outer surface or Fresnel rings on the inside surface. Hopefully I'll see that other projector this week, and will be able to come up with a bracket design.

[Jack Mayer]

David, I recently had an "opportunity" to do a bunch of night driving delivering my truck to the new owner. Bless you, my friend. I could actually see, and see well.

[Dollytrolley]

David, I recently had an "opportunity" to do a bunch of night driving delivering my truck to the new owner. Bless you, my friend. I could actually see, and see well.

So...is the new truck...the Argosy glider that Jeff posted?

 

Drive on....(glide down the road)

[Stan Wright]

So...is the new truck...the Argosy glider that Jeff posted?

 

Drive on....(glide down the road)

 

I noticed that, too. Do we need to watch Gregg Shields' site for another truck build?

[Jack Mayer]

 

I noticed that, too. Do we need to watch Gregg Shields' site for another truck build?

Nope. Only the end result will be shown. Sometime around the end of March.

[Pete Kildow]

WOW that is one sharp KW. And I know you will get a lifetime of use out of that one. Those wheels set the truck off. Great post and lots of good info in it for sure.

I almost bought its twin, or was told the cab was the same. Peterbilt 384 but was 2 hours late on it.

Pete

[Pete Kildow]

Nope. Only the end result will be shown. Sometime around the end of March.

Jack is there anything that your for sure doing different this build? The last one was sure nice and well thought out.

Pete

[GeorgiaHybrid]

WOW that is one sharp KW. And I know you will get a lifetime of use out of that one. Those wheels set the truck off. Great post and lots of good info in it for sure.

I almost bought its twin, or was told the cab was the same. Peterbilt 384 but was 2 hours late on it.

Pete

 

I think the 579 Pete is the twin of the T680 KW but has a low headroom cab over the seats.

 

Vicki picked out the wheels on the truck after seeing them in a brochure. After seeing them in person, I have to admit that she was right, they set the truck off.

[Pete Kildow]

 

I think the 579 Pete is the twin of the T680 KW but has a low headroom cab over the seats.

 

Vicki picked out the wheels on the truck after seeing them in a brochure. After seeing them in person, I have to admit that she was right, they set the truck off.

Thanks that's good to know.

Pete