Headlight glare on a grille guard

[gogmorgo]

It’s coming up to the dark season, ~16 hours between sunset and sunrise around here, so I figure I should do something about this:

And I tried something out. More as a proof of concept than anything else. 

 

Wrapped the top bars in good old hockey tape. Surprisingly doesn’t look as bad as I expected, although my technique could use work. It’s tough to keep the tape flat as you shove the roll between bats. 
Yeah I know there’s a specific tape product out there for this, but it’s not exactly cheap for a couple stickers that don’t look like they’ll cover much. I’m also not convinced as to the winter worthiness of a product designed in Australia.

It took about 3/4 of a roll to do the entire top bar, and maybe twenty minutes of my time. It’s water resistant, reasonably durable, stays stuck in the cold, and if you don’t have it already laying around like I do it’s available everywhere for like $5/roll, in pretty much any colour of your choosing.
I thought about black paints but even a flat black would probably do this, the oxidized coating on the thing is already pretty flat. It’s less the light reflecting off of it than how brightly its illuminated. Short of some sort of vantablack knock-off I don’t really know what else might work. Was maybe wondering about something rubbery like a plastidip but I would’ve had to go out of my way for that.
Gonna wait until it gets dark then see how it does I guess. If it seems to deal with the glare okay I’ll see how it holds up long-term. 
 

I’m also wondering if part of my problem isn’t how beat up and twisted the grille guard is. Or how my headlights aren’t aimed particularly well. Or maybe the headlight guard bars and stone guards are diffusing the beams and making the problem worse. I don’t really remember it being so bad but I haven’t driven it much for the last six years. Still no complaints about the sealed beams not lighting up the road otherwise though so they can’t be diffusing or deflecting too much light. 

[Pete M]

I like easy fixes to complicated problems.   

 

no "after" pic? 

[pizzaman09]

I like the solution.  I'd probably have tried flat black paint but this is a bit classier.

[gogmorgo]

Had to wait until it was properly dark out, Pete 

Yeah I could have got to it sooner. Part of the reason for the post was to see what anyone else may have done. 

 

 

It’s definitely not worse, but it’s also not better by a huge amount. Here’s the “before” again for better side by each comparison. 

For what its worth comparing two pictures from different angles in different places taken a week apart in different weather. 
 

I’m wishing I’d just done a couple test patches instead of going the whole length right away. Would be easier to compare. I’ll leave it on though, see how it holds up. 
I don’t know that I’d call it particularly classy, but I won’t kink shame if you’re into it. It doesn’t look worse than before but that’s not saying much with how badly bent, scratched, rust bubbled it is. 
Most of what I’m seeing online has people painting it a matte black, or using a matte vinyl sticker of some kind. Whether it works better than what I did is something I can’t really test. The only for-purpose product I’ve seen is the ARB sticker and I haven’t found any reviews. I don’t think the issue is really that it reflects light at me, it’s more that it is very illuminated. 
 

 

I think a grille guard that isn’t twisted up like mine would sit closer to the headlight so wouldn’t catch so much glare. It mostly serves an aesthetic function for me so there’s not much point in replacing it until the rest of the truck is going to match a shiny new bumper. I could always just take it off entirely but it’s covering up some collision damage from wedging the truck between a couple trees a long time ago. 

[pizzaman09]

Might you consider blocking the source?  If you are ok with the look, blocking some of the headlight itself may work.

[gogmorgo]

2 hours ago, pizzaman09 said:

Might you consider blocking the source?  If you are ok with the look, blocking some of the headlight itself may work.

Headlights are there for a reason lol

[pizzaman09]

8 hours ago, gogmorgo said:

Headlights are there for a reason lol

He is already blocking that portion of the light with the brush bar.

Though thinking in retrospect, the glas on the front of a sealed beam is very complex and scatters the light so my suggestion is unlikely to work well.

[gogmorgo]

6 hours ago, pizzaman09 said:

He is already blocking that portion of the light with the brush bar.

Though thinking in retrospect, the glas on the front of a sealed beam is very complex and scatters the light so my suggestion is unlikely to work well.

I mean it does kinda make sense. I had considered some sort of visor kinda thing, similar to a traffic light. But I don’t really want to limit the light output more than the brush guard already does. You do see them on heavy trucks though. 

Makes me wonder if there’s an existing product out there that would fit. Lots of trucks still running sealed beam style lighting. 

[89 MJ]

I am curious about a felt product on the grille guard. Or the softer part of velcro. It is very similar to the hockey tape, but its possibly less reflective.

[gogmorgo]

I don’t know that actual reflection is the issue so much as just the thing being very illuminated. Which I guess is techincally light reflecting off it, but I don’t know you’ll change much there without some fancy light-absorbing material. Velcro is likely a similar synthetic material to the hockey tape. 

I think I’ll try pushing the guard closer to the front of the truck when I get home tonight. Maybe do some digging to see if I can turn up a visor thing too. 

 

I’m also wondering if anyone else with the Aries brush guard or any other that isn’t bent all to hell like mine has the same experience. 

[pizzaman09]

3 hours ago, gogmorgo said:

I mean it does kinda make sense. I had considered some sort of visor kinda thing, similar to a traffic light. But I don’t really want to limit the light output more than the brush guard already does. You do see them on heavy trucks though. 

Makes me wonder if there’s an existing product out there that would fit. Lots of trucks still running sealed beam style lighting. 

This is effectively how modern bi-xenon headlights work.  They have a single xenon bulb in the projector housing and there is a little servo controlled flap that uncovers the top of the beam for high beam.  

[pizzaman09]

What you really need is some of the ultra black paints that are so black that they absorb light without reflecting any back.  I'm not sure there are any commercially available since these paints seem to mostly be laboratory experiments.

[gogmorgo]

Yup. And definitely not worth the coin to put onto this grille guard. Case in point, my “straightening” technique:

It’s closer to the headlight now by about an inch. 
And no I didn’t hit it very hard, just nudged up against the tree and pushed in low range. Hockey tape held up pretty well too. 

 

 

And this is an actual product that someone makes:

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/370589156066

They just tuck up under the bezel. Aren’t sealed beams great? So many accessories. I’d be more inclined to build my own though. Don’t really care for the stainless/chrome look, or $50 by the time it’s shipped up here for two strips of metal with an edge bent up and a couple corners. Maybe I’ll do it sometime… maybe I won’t get around to it. 

Hasn’t been a lot of “what others have done” discussion. The hockey tape did more than nothing so I’m okay with that for now. At least it makes me feel like I did something. I’ll see how it holds up over winter, if it’s something I’d want to do if I ever get a new grille guard, if I even need to do it on a new one.