Tutorial: Retrofitting Projectors

[MA91CK]

Here's a fairly quick run down on what needs to be done when retrofitting projectors into halogen reflector style headlights. Basically theres 2 ways this can be done, and depending on what you want or size limitations you have you may have no choice to use one way or the other.

* Note this will only work with lights sealed with butyl rubber, silicon sealed healdlights require the lens to be CUT off.

Tools Required :

Both methods need basically the same tools minus a few things so I will list everything here:

1. heat gun/ large oven.

2. dremel tool with cutoff wheel, drill\cut bit, sanding bit

3. phillips/flat head screwdrivers

4. knife

5. needle nose pliers

6. Bench sander

7. compressed air of some sort

Parts required:

1. chosen style of projector

2. butyl rubber

3. Paint ( if blacking out/painting lens)

4. 2 part epoxy ( I use jb weld + jb quick for setting initially )

5. sand paper ( both for priming surfaces for paint and sanding lenses if required )

PPE required:

1. glasses

2. P2/cartridge mask ( trust me, you dont wana breathe this sh*t in )

3. gloves for when the lights are super hot.

4. brew of choice ( for stress relief purpouses )

Method 1 ( the bolt in kit )

This is the easiest and least destructive way of doing installs. Can be reversed if absolutely necassary, but sometimes cant be performed because of how far they protrude out ( fg light ) , plus they dont look as good.

1. grab your lights and stick them in a preheated oven on a piece of super hard wood or something that wont allow the lights to melt onto the oven trays @ 210 degrees F ( dont ask me C, I dont use this method ) for about 15 minutes. Keep checking after 15 to see if the glue has melted suficiently.

The other method is to use a heat gun and slowly heat up around the sealed section. You will know when the butyl rubber has gotten hot enough, it begins to go shiny and slightly bubbles. keep working around the light for a good 3 - 4 minutes to get even heat in it.

2. Grab your gloves, unclip any clips around the headlight, and begin to pull apart. I dont suggest to pry apart with screwdrivers as our lights have got soft plastic backings. the light SHOULD pull apart fairly easily. ( if it doesnt, some of your clips are still holding it back )

3. Once the lights are apart, you will need to unscrew one screw in the b series. The other two clips are just ball joints, and will pop off with careful force. Your reflector is now out to play around with and retro.

You should be able to just use the rubber washer, and then use the retaining nut to bolt your Projector though the H7 low beam hole, without any damage. Once in, feed any solenoid wires through the parker hole or a hole that you drill behind the projector and you are ready to reverse the process.

use compressed air to blow out any contaminants!

PART 2:

The real "retrofit"

So part 1 explained how to do a bolt in retrofit for all the guys not wanting to stuff their headlights up and be able to revert back to halogen, this part is going to explain how to do a proper retrofit. Possibilities are endless doing a retrofit this way, and its only really your imagination stopping you. All PPE, tools and equipment are already listed in part 1. This also allows you to do headlights with space constraints, such as the fg, where a simple bolt in wuld not have clearance between the front lens, and adjustability would severly suffer ( up and down, left to right )

Method 2:

Splitting

1. To split the headlights, refer to method 1. You ust split the headlights in the same fashion, this does not change. Once the headlights are seperated, remove your lens and reflector like method 1 also. You will now have the lens, rear housing, and refelctor seperate ( or should )

What are you going to do with your lights?

2. once everything is apart, decide what you are going to do. A single projector retrofit typically will be mounted inside your low beam reflector. When doing quads ( twin projectors each light ) obviously both will have projectors mounted. I have found the FXR 3.0" prpjector to be the most versatile, especially for big cars/headlights like ours. It give the greatest performance, spread, and base to retrofit into lights. Although big and chunky, its robust and has a large surface area to work with.

Cutsomisation before projector mounting

3. Any custom work you decide to carry out should be done now. As in blacking out the light assembly ( painting the whole assembly black, yes you can do this the light is only coming out of the projector bulb now! ) devil eyes ( makes the lens a colour by painting the innner parts of the projector assembly ) or painting the inside of the headlight a certain colour. The only custom part you do last is angel eyes if you are doing them. I do it this way because once you mount the projector, you dont wana be spraying things anywhere near the lens.

Mounting the projector

4. Now its time to mount the projector. depending how far you want it to be recessed into the refelector, dictates how much cutting is needed. Remember, you can always cut more away, so less is more. Take yur time and cut in small increments. Start off by working out how deep you want to recess, then measuring how big of a hole you need to start with.

Mirror that on the rear of the reflector and cut just smaller ( once again, cut smaller and work your way up ) fit the projector int the hole and see what parts hit first, and what needs to stay at that size cut. Continue to work the hole until you have a shape hole that matches the section of projector that needs to meet the reflector of the light assembly to recess it far enough for your liking. It doesnt have to be perfect, but the closer the better when it comes time to epoxying the bulb in. Use a cut off wheel to cut the initial hole ( its quicker ) then use the dremel/griding bit ( carbide drill looking bit ) to shape the hole. This is the most time consuming part I believe. remember this hole needs to be as centralised as possible, and keep checking the rear husing to see if it will foul aywhere, you may need to either not recess as far as you would like or consider modifying the rear housing to suit also.

Repeat the process for your high beam if doing quads. Blow all dust away, clean and youre ready to epoxy.

Setting your projectors permenantly

5. Once you are happy with the inset of you projector in its new mounting place, you need a way to secure it. Theres a couple of opitons:

* You can use a bolt and nut with the 4 securing holes to hold it in

* Epoxy in place

* Bolt and epoxy in place

Ideally, bolt and epoxy is ideal, but depeding on your skill and time contstraints, it may not be viable. ATLEAST epoxy, dont just bolt, They WILL move eventually.

The advantage to bolting is you can align the projector wth the bolts the they will aid in holding the projector while you epoxy, but theres also another trick to align and hold. 2 part epoxy putty. Get 4 small balls, roll them up and stick them evenly around the porjector where they meet the reflector. While aligning, they will hold it tight enough to stay put but you will have enough time to move it around to get the alignment right. using jb kwik also works, but as the name states, it sets within 4 minutes, so be prepared and have everything ready to align when you use it, then hold for a few minutes in the right spot to set.

Aligning

6. Once you have your 'tacks; ready, its time to align. put the refector back in the housing. Situate your headlight at normal car level ( or in car ideally ) against a plain coloured, flat wall. have your hid system already installed and on a 12v source plugged in. You will see the light has a sharp 'cutoff' line, which means the projector is doing its job. There is a dip or drop in the line, this is normal. Your ideal position ( when everything is at about centre, porjector aligned roughly to the centre) is at just below a cars side mirrors at 5M, or about 1M. This is not vitally important but a good bas to work from. The important part is the orienatuion of that cutoff. The line must be as close to horizontal as possible. Do what you can, tape a level to the wall @ 1M is a good idea. Twist the projector in the mount until you reach level. Now hold it there ( wether its with the putty or JB kwik ) and let it set @ level. This is crucial as you have a crooked cutoff and the whole theory behind having that cutoff setup in the first place is deemed useless. Dont worry about it being a little high or low, that's what adjusters are for. Just get that cutoff level. You want both upper lines and both lower lines of each projector to be at the same level also, to get that crisp, sharp line.

If you can get this part done correctly, youve successfully retrofitted your first projectors.

Securing

7. once our projectors are solid enough to once again pull out of the rear housing, do so. These tacks are not enough to hold it in place. Mix up enough epoxy to be abe to cover the whole rear area of the projector where the reflector meets the bowl of the projector itself. Good, even coverage, where reflector and projector have a good 2cm of epoxy either side of the hole. You cant ever really use too muh, but use common sense. A good, 4-5 cm wide layer around the bowl will hold the projector well enough that once set, youll smash the reflector before cracking the join of epoxy between the two surfaces.

Re assembly

8. once everything is cure and ready to re install, run all your cable through your parker hole and/or pre drilled holes, and re-seal as per method 1.

Congrats on your one off custom headlights!

Yes its alot of work, and alot of people are worried to attempt such a job.

2 projectors I use

mocked up for recess depth purpouse

painting parts required for passive devils eyes

testing alignment and output

finished product before sealing

what a passive deviles eye looks like assembled

that they look like after a buff

the whole system with HD relay

this is an fg light, great fun to split! ( I mean cut )

twin mock up

another passive blue devils eye

Edited 02/01/15 07:27 PM by Dagabond

[Panda Eyes]

why not just install series 2 headlights. arent they projector?

[MattyP]

On a ba?

[Panda Eyes]

ah. thought he had an fg...

[MA91CK]

B series panda.

With mk11, they're like 600 for a set sometimes more Atleast that's what I've seen. And you get what everyone else has. Everyone wants their car to be unique. Different shrouds. Different projector style, coloured lens, blacked out, you can do what you want!

Ever seen quad projectors on an fg? Me either. But you will soon

Had* dumbest thing I have ever done was sell it too

[Rab]

Are the projectors that much better?

I've never jumped in the FG and thought "Wow - the headlights are really, really good" (actually wouldn't mind better lighting)

[MA91CK]

Rab, I'll do a comparison with b series and fg when I've done a mate lights.

Aside from increased output, legally hids are allowed as they use a cutoff. Instead of blinding people, light is focused into a strong beam at eye level, technically adjusted to be just below an average side mirror. Lesser powered bulbs are needed, and a solenoid is used to lower the cutoff for high beam

Low beam is the real advantage, high beam basically won't be significantly better, but looks aesthetically a lot nicer. That's why modern cars use them

[Rab]

Cheers - was just something I was wondering

All the selling points about the "Projector Headlights" I was getting with my car I was expecting something spectacular and didn't really notice a difference between them and my 2002 Pajeros headlights.

Perhaps the height of the Paj's lights on the front effectively did what the projector lights do - strong beam at mirror height

edit: that said - I do remember commenting on how good the Paj's headlights were when I first got it. Maybe I was already spoilt and didn't have a regular sedan to be comparing them to

Edited 18/09/14 01:44 AM by Rab

[Kosij]

Someone say pics!

Hope you don't mind

[MA91CK]

you're champ kosij! ill do some in the build pics and add them to the posts tonight. Don't worry, Jmes' lights aren't that rough anymore, that was before sanding and buffing