Thermo, above for the melted connector you instructed Patriot to unplug the headlight housing. I've had trouble in the past getting any of the connectors on this car disconnected. What is the trick? Are they snapped together that well or am i missing a latch....any help would be thankful.

 

myjag, the clips that hold the headlight connector in are a royal PITA to get loose (atleast for me). There is a lock on the connector that you have to undo. If you look at the connector, there is a bump on the one long side. If you look inside the bump, you will see a little lever there. I forget if you have to lift up on it or push it in to get it to release. But, once it is released, the plug will come right apart.

 

Okay fog lights sound easy enough. Headlights are scaring me a bit. It's just that I don't want to cause any damage that is going to cost even more money to fix. I guess I will just have to think about it for a bit. Thanks for your help though mate!

 

bevoh, the headlights are not that bad. If you look at your local hardware store, they have what are called "step bits". They are shaped like a triangle and have about 9 steps to them to drill holes in varying sizes. Measure the inside dimension of the seal that comes with the HID grommet and drill a hole for that size. If anything, go a little small. You can always make the hole bigger. As for the wiring, you will have as I recall a brown wire and a yellow wire. The brown wire is the positive wire, the yellow is the negative wire (double check with a multimeter as I am running off of memory here).

It really is not a hard thing to do. Just have some crimp tubes (aka, butt splices) and use those to make your connections. The hardest part of this mod is simply getting the plug off of the headlight assembly so you can have some room to work. But, even that is simple once you get it figured out.

 

I need a step by step instruction as to what to do.
I so far I have the bumper off and my fog lights out, not sure what to do next, I didn't even start on the low beams.

~Boss

 

Hey Boss, did you ever get anywhere with your HID conversion?

 

I was thinking of putting in LED parking lights too in the high beams, but now it doesn't sound so feasible with the heat. Hardly ever use the high beams though.

 

zach, I have had LED lights in my running light spots (inside the high beam) for 5 years now. No issues. BUt, like was mentioned, I don't use my high beams all that often. The bigger problem I seem to see is that the LED lights are using surface mount LEDs and they are using a very little bit of solder to hold the chips in place. As a result, the humidity in the air is enough to cause the solder to start to corrode and with very little corrosion, the solder joints fail, leading to the lights no longer working. I solved this issue with my car as I went a slight different route in that I used some 10MM 285K MCD leds and then put a resistor in series with the bulb socket. You can then roll the leads of the LED to fit into the factory socket and it all works good. Then all you have to do is protect the spots where you soldered in the resistor. I have found that using some Raychem WCSF-050 shrink tubing is perfect and it will make things last for a long, long time.

If you need more info, let me know. I will pass on what you need to know. If you are worried about the Raychem tubing surviving the under hood temps, don't. I use this stuff at work to survive a nuclear disaster (literally). It is GOOD!!!! stuff.

 

I just upgraded my headlights and fog lights to HID 5Ks. I took a lot of pics to share with everyone. What I have here is a basic run down of what I did, feel free to dig deeper and ask questions.

I got the Maxlux H1 kit for the headlights, and the H11 for the fogs. The H1 kit is a plug and play replacement for our headlights, has the same little bumps on the plug body and a flat edge that fits right in where the halogens would.

For the fogs the H11 are a good fit, but they need to be RTV’d to the housing, there are no clips to hold them in place as with the headlights. I used zip ties to hold them in place while the RTV cured.

I took my time and pulled the bumper cover, which holds the fogs, pulled both headlight assemblies out of the car and spent a day doing the R&R, even polished up my lens covers.

Below is a picture of the bumper cover removed in the carport. This is actually a pic of the re-assembly. I set it on ottomans and used a trash can so it wouldn't fall over, then inched it towards the car and set the fog light ballast into the chassis on little fun shelves I found in there.


Here's the headlight HID lamp. The way it works is pretty cool. How Do HID/Xenon Headlamps Work and Why Should You Install Them?


HID on the left, Halogen on the right.


I also got the adjusters for the headlights. push pulls are at the top of the headlamp assy and the horizontal slider sits at the bottom.


I used simultaneous channel locks to pry the lens covers off. Slowly....they put Gorilla snot in the groove or something, don't crack the plastic. I had to cut the Gorilla snot to get the lens covers off.




Got them all apart. I ended up polishing the lens covers with headlight paste since I had them off the car and I could get around the sides with a buffer.

I did not wipe the chrome pieces, they were basically clean with a little dust. I just sprayed the shiny surfaces with compressed air. Rather surprising for a 12 year old car. The head lamps are well sealed and difficult to separate.


The chrome pieces have each 3 tabs that also go into the Gorilla snot perimeter. They appear to have their own sub slots.


"Chrome piece" removed - bare light assembly


Hi beam / Low beam assy removed from housing.



Here we have the new headlight push/pull going into the old socket cup. The cup is stretched and won't hold the ball end. I ended up squirting a little RTV in the cups and then jamming the ball ends into them, and let them set over night. Below that, you can see the new horizontal slider piece installed.


Had to pull the cup and knock out the old plastic ball end that was stuck. I glued the cup back in place with Super glue.


Here is a new HID plugged into the headlight housing. Fits nicely; the original clips still work.


Drilled a 1" hole in the back of the light cover. The grommet seals it up nicely


This is the back of the hi beam, I replaced the adjusters, but left these halogen as they are bright at the flick of the switch, unlike the HIDs which take about 5 secs to full brightness.


High beam adjuster slides into a groove.


Somehow I didn't get many pics of the flog light install. The first is taken sitting at the driver's front wheel looking fwd with the bumper cover afloat.


Next we have a top view with the HID harness's in place. As I moved the bumper cover back into place I zip tied the extra harness length to the body along with the ballasts.


And, ignition!

 

Patterson, good write up. I am looking at ripping my headlights apart to replace the adjusters. I think you would have had a slightly easier time had you heated up the edges of the housing some to make the sealant more pliable and it will aide in getting the clear lens off.

 

Thermo, true enough! They were very tough to separate, I didn't think of heating them. Also, I wanted to use some Raychem shrink tubing that you've mentioned to insulate the soldered fog light wires, but I don't own a blow dryer and my gf was out of town. Must visit Harbor Freight for a real heat gun. I ended up wrapping them with electrical tape.

This was a cool project and I put everything back together so that I don't have to touch it for a few years! I just want to set it and forget it, like the guy on TV

 

Patterson, if you are after a heat gun, your local Lowes/Home Depot/etc will have an assortment of heat guns. Look in the paint supply section. I just picked one up for like $35.