Cord or cordless, best underhood work light?

[DanglerB]

Working under the hood of a car has to be one of the worst lighting situations. Frequently the ambient light level is high, even direct sunlight, but the structure of the hood etc makes the engine compartment a gloomy shadowed cave. Professional and enthuiast users both want the best without a lot of concern for cost, so what do you flashlight experts see as the best (without jumping immediately to custom made devices).

Mountain UL39 is flourescent and corded, but lots of output.

Mountain (MTNUL39) 39 Watt Underhood Light

Snapon [FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]ECFBARLED is cordless, bright, expensive. (not much info on Snapon site, $130, made in CHN.


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[KeeblerElf]

I can't attest as to whether a corded or cordless light is best, but one suggestion that makes sense to me is to consider a headlamp. Presumably your head will be in a position and orientation that would make a good headlamp a great choice for lighting up what you need to see. If the idea is to provide a stationary light source under the hood so that multiple people can work on the vehicle as needed, then you can basically ignore everything that follows.

If you're familiar with rechargeable lithium ion batteries and their safety concerns, I would recommend something like the Zebralight H600w Mk II 18650 XM-L2 Headlamp Neutral White. It runs on a single 18650 cell and has great run times and a lot of power, as well as a more neutral tint (which may help in correctly identifying fluid colors; if this is of great importance, though, there are better choices out there).

If you don't need such long runtimes, and/or if you aren't familiar with lithium ion battery safety concerns, you might consider the Zebralight H52w Headlamp Neutral White. It uses a single AA, so you might bring a couple rechargeable cells with you each day and swap them out, then charge them overnight. Assuming 50 - 100 lumens is sufficient for your work, the light would last between 3 and 7 hours on a single AA. As before, the neutral tint may aid you in correctly identifying fluid colors.

These seem like reasonable starting suggestions.

 

[buds224]

Agreed. Headlamp since it's lined up very closely to your field of vision and will almost always be pointing where you need it. I have an HP25 and love that I can choose between Flood, Spot, or both as necessary. x4 aa batts.

 

[Tjin]

Any LED underhood light will work, cordless is easier when working. But cordless needs to be charged, some can run both on batteries and with a cord. Since most of it will be used for work area lighting and will be used roughly, there is really no point in getting a expensive one. Get one from your local parts guy/DIY store.

For hard to access parts, something like the Petzl Pixa line of headlights is pretty handy. Use it as a headlight when needed or remove it from the strap and use it as a separate aim-able light.

 

[Diesel Pro]

I have an older Snap on LED rechargeable trouble light. It is my go-to light. It has a nice docking base for charging. The light has multiple LEDs. It's not exceptionally bright by modern standards, but gets the job done

One huge to consideration is a minimum 6' drop rating. These lights get dropped a lot. Mine has been dropped numerous times and has yet to fail me.

Also oil and solvent resistant and the ability to clean up. I use fast orange wipes and mine wipes nice and clean. The lens is a bit scratched, but again it works great and has is well over 5 yrs old maybe closer to 10 yrs.

 

[Etsu]

You're not going to get better bang-for-the-buck than going with a corded solution, if you need a lot of light.

 

[inetdog]

The japanglish owner's manual for my 1965 Datsun pickup referred to the light attached to the underside of the hood as the "engine room light" :)

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[kuksul08]

Headlamp easily. I do tons of work on the car and it's the best. Zebralights are awesome.

 

[cjmorris]

4 sevens atom has a magnetic base and is a mule. It would be perfect under a hood.

 

[stewdogg]

I turn wrenches for a living and I have a bunch of corded and cordless lights. Nothing beats the corded fluorescent under hood lights. Tons of light and it reflects to almost everywhere I need it. If I didn't get paid to do this I would just deal with a handheld for the few times I would need it.
I find that headlights are great for a little while. My hands are alway dirty and the headlamp bands get filthy right away. I'm not going to wash them nightly so they don't work for me at work. Nothing like walking around talking to people all day with crap all over my forehead from adjusting the light...
I have a cordless multi led light from the tool truck that is great for mobil work but doesn't compare to the amount of useful light I get from the under hood fluorescent light.

 

[DanglerB]

Sorry mods on the links, read the banner, didn't sink in, and I didn't see a way to describe the lights without links to the product.

I do use a headlight, nothing as fancy as a ZL, but engine compartments are not as cooperative as many places so that a source on your forehead might not illuminate down into the pit your eyes can see into, and the constant moving of shadows would drive you nuts.

I also have a few lights, corded and cordless, but so far nothing like the monster size I would like. Mechanic friend had a 4 CFL tube 52watt hand held or hook that was pretty nice. Underhood though is a class of light that generally mounts from side to side on the raised hood to light up everything. I haven't found another 52watt CFL like my friend has, but the Mountain is a 39 watt T5 which is a high efficiency tube, and the Snapon is in the same class of flood output. Seems like something new to everybody here, area floods and small high power floods.

Three of my cars have aluminum front ends including the hood, magnets not much good, flexible soft non paint marring hooks are essential.