Need some help from the fellow 95-99 truck body guys.

I need to repair the headlight system on my sisters 99 Tahoe.
We've owned it since new, and the headlights as of recent continue to get more and more crappy.

The lenses are starting to fog a bit, which I can try to polish or just replace for factory housings relatively cheaply...but the bulb brightness just seems lack-luster compared to my T800, and other older vehicles I've had. They are just...Dim - Even with Silverstar Ultra bulbs installed.

The alternator is a standard 105 amp unit and was replaced (Durolast gold). The battery was also recently replaced. Starts up quick, charges around 14V and no other electrical gremlins that I can tell.

I do have the APC aftermarket headlight Harness with relays if needed, but looking for a good housing that is perhaps diamond cut, and mabee HID 5000K bulbs. I just don't want to have a housing melt down.

I did purchase these from Summit - but they were garbage. Even after the first set was replaced by the manufacturer, the second set was worse. The bulbs didn't even fit the housings. Summit claims no one complained about these...but that's really hard to believe. Ipcw Crystal Clear Diamond Cut Headlights 1988 1999 GMC C K 1500 Chrome Housing | eBay

Has anyone upgraded the housings to a clean looking pair, and what bulbs are you using?

I'm welcome to ideas as it's her daily driver and she lives in the northern regions of MI where there are many critters darting out.
It's a pristine truck, and I'd hate to have it wrecked at this point in its life.

Thanks for any help you can provide soon.
C

 

Its been a while since I fooled with this so don't take it literally.

I had a 90 454SS that was hit in the front and part of the restoration was replacing the headlamps. I wanna say in 94 or 95+ the headlamp housings are different from the previous ones. The one big difference was that the newer lamps had like a black ring around them as opposed to the earlier ones having a chrome or clear ring and I think to put the later lamps in the bulb mounted completely upside down from the original.



pic of truck when I got it.

 

It's 95 when the front end design changed...subtle changes, but enough to be completely different LOL

TYC seems to be the brand to go with, but even cheap eBay headlights can be decent enough for HID's. Just be sure that they have some form of shield or real projector lens and you won't blind everyone driving down the road with you.

 

It's 1994, not 1995 for the grill/lamp change on both Chev and GMC that carried on through the end of the GMT400 run. It's also the same year they added the center high mount stop lamp. Easy way to distinguish a 1994 if nothing else because it has the new front and the CHMSL with the older interior. 1995 was the interior change and then 1996 was OBD 2 and Vortec....

 

I had HIDs in my 89 when it was stock height. After driving it at night one or two times I took them back out. Those housings just arent made for HIDs, they scatter the light everywhere. I had them aimed so low it wasnt even worth having them and I still got flashed the brights by about every car that went by me.

Had them in my 01 with the 06 front clip for a couple years and never once got flashed brights.

I have a set of TYC headlights here for my 89, they are way better than the Ebay ones that were in it. Maybe try a set of HIR bulbs in a new set of housings and see how you like it.