I have long hated the weakness of the headlights in my truck. I also absolutely hate when someone blinds me with their headlights. I've been thinking of projector headlights and to prevent me blinding someone I was thinking of doing it in the below section of the bumper of my truck.
I figured I would 3D print a housing, then cast it in aluminum for rigidity, lexan or some other similar material for the lens cover. Beyond that I don't really have any clues or ideas for what I need to look at.
Sounds like a big project. If you want to go the route you're describing, I'd pick up some cheap bi-xenon projectors from The Retrofit Source and build around those. Or I suppose there are a fair amount of good junkyard options nowadays too.
On the other hand, have you looked at just retrofitting bi-xenon projectors into your factory housings, or getting some cheap aftermarket projector housings? I have the latter in my C5, and they're not amazing, but still a big upgrade from stock halogens. They use a projector low beam and a reflector high beam. The projector has a nice sharp cutoff; if you aim it properly, you won't be blinding anybody.
A set of mini h1 projectors, 5k bulbs and 55w ballasts in stock housings has worked miracles for me in the past. And in two of my current cars. And i mever get flasshed or blind people.
However, there are bixenon projectors on ebat that claim to be waterproof for installation just like youre referencing in the bumper.
Before going too far on the modifications have you checked the voltage to the headlights?
I don't if Ford did it, but some of the others have sent the full headlight voltage/current through the switch resulting in low voltage at the bulb.
I plan to buy a relay harness for my Ram to get the full 12-14 volts at the headlight bulbs.
Dusterbd13-michael said:A set of mini h1 projectors, 5k bulbs and 55w ballasts in stock housings has worked miracles for me in the past. And in two of my current cars. And i mever get flasshed or blind people.
However, there are bixenon projectors on ebat that claim to be waterproof for installation just like youre referencing in the bumper.
I've also heard that there are heat problems with the projectors, which is why I was thinking I'd need to cast a full on aluminum housing.
No Time said:Before going too far on the modifications have you checked the voltage to the headlights?
I don't if Ford did it, but some of the others have sent the full headlight voltage/current through the switch resulting in low voltage at the bulb.
I plan to buy a relay harness for my Ram to get the full 12-14 volts at the headlight bulbs.
I know its a problem on much older cars (I built a relay setup for the Mustang.) I guess the truck is getting to be old enough that it might start having that problem as well. I currently have LED bulbs in the truck in an attempt to mitigate that, though.
I have the same headlights in my f350. You can get the "crystal" headlights that don't have the front fluting which would be much better to retrofit because it won't mess with the amazing optics of the projectors.
Bake the headlight lenses off the housing, use oven cleaner to ditch all the chrome(or buy black housings), cut hole for a projector bought from the retrofit source, mount using either the threaded shaft or 4 bolts depending on what projector you get epoxy/jb weld in place, glue housings back together, enjoy having daylight at night.
I haven't had heat related issues any across 5 retrofitted cars, 7 years, and 100k.
The mini h1 setup has a casting for the bulb holder and bowl, and mounts through the factory bulb hole.
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
Good to know. Last I looked into it was quite a few years ago, so that info about heat might be well out of date.
new oem style lights off of LMC did wonders for my obs.
In reply to Mr_Asa :
While the LEDs will help address voltage concerns, then can add other challenges.
You have a reflector designed for a halogen bulb and the emission pattern from that bulb. The LEDs don't emit light in the same pattern so the reflector may not take full advantage of the brighter output.
As iansane mentioned, get a second set of headlights with the clear lenses, so you can do this work and still leave the vehicle drivable.
I've done this a few times, once with all The Retrofit Source parts, another with amazon. Hate to be the guy, but I didn't think the bixenon projectors from amazon were all that bad.
Use a heat gun or an oven set to 200 degrees to soften the butyl, and carefully pry them open. Try to scrape all the old sealer off(this sucks). If your stock bulb is around the size of an H4, the retrofit projector has a threaded section that threads through where the bulb used to sit, and is held in place with a lockring. Usually those projectors are H1, but can also be one of the D2x varieties. I like H1 for more options. First retro I used yellow HIDs, this time around I found a small enough LED bulb that worked. Same amount of light, no new wiring (aside from H4 to H1 adapters).
I personally like an OEM look, so I leave the chrome.
Remember to buy some butyl sealant—it's sold on a roll and mimics the consistency of a JB Stik. Too much and the headlights won't completely meet up, but too little is worse—foggy headlights.
Iansane is right on the money with the crystal headlights and baking them open. You may need to use a dremel to waller out the hole for the bulb in the reflector side. Opening the headlights and resealing them is the hardest part. Bad Need For Speed music and Honda Civic content not withstanding this is a pretty decent high level breakdown of the process. Yootooob
I did a retrofit on my 03 Denali with a set of $30 Morimoto Mini H1 clones off of amazon and $20 in laser cut adapter plates for my Yukon's headlights. Add in a cheap set of HID bulbs Link and boom, lots of light in all of the right spots and none of the wrong spots. HID/LEDs in reflector housings is a huge pet peeve of mine but I can't drive anything with bad headlights anymore after I had a set of Euro projectors on my FiST.
I got almost nuthin, but a pair of E36M3 projector headlamps can be made to fit in a 1st gen BG Mazda Protege.
get the aftermarket clear housings, throw em in the oven and pop in some projectors. When your not doing any fancy DRLs or halos and other stuff, its incredibly straight forward especially when using shaft mounted projectors. Just make sure you get em level.
I prefer the cheap "acme" projectors for most of my builds. $25 for the set with incredible output
I rebuilt the headlights in my G35 using Hella components. Bottom of the page here.
I was super happy with how they turned out.
In reply to RacetruckRon :
Those are the exact projectors I ordered last night, so that's good to see at least.
I need to figure out how to properly adapt my headlight plugs to this setup, but I think I've got a pretty straightforward plan. I'll update this as I get parts and start futzing with it.
They sell adapters for about 15 bucks on Amazon to go.from stock plug to bixenon
That'll be a 9007 bulb stock, right? The easy button is a relay kit to actuate the bixenon solenoid while keeping the main beam powered up. If you just adapt the wires directly, you get the solenoid activation and no light.
Well. This was an absolute pain in the ass. I don't think they used butyl rubber on these, I think it was just grey RTV.
Sidenote: I'd like to paint these matte black, I know the projectors get hot, but I can't imagine that I'll need to pick up high temp paint?
Use oven cleaner to take the chrome off and also once you paint them...bake em for a little bit once they dry to help out gas them before going into the housing
I'll give it a shot.
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