Baked... headlight?!?

Well I got bored and ended up baking my new headlights in the oven! This is the way to soften the rubber glue and pry open the lens from the holder.

Remove all plastic and metal from your headlight. For the Camry I had to remove 4 clips (2 top and 2 bottom), 3 screws and a plastic holder from behind the highbeam, a plastic stopper, the rubber foot and the clip that holds the H4 halogen bulb. Also to remove the holders (2 of them) I will show you this later :D

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and prepare your headlight on the tray. Turn the oven off and place the headlight in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

After you take your headlight out, pry a corner open with a flat head screwdriver. Remember to hold the headlight with something heatproof as it will be HOT.

Pictures above are of the lens and the housing separated. Now to wait for my delivery to arrive from America!

I guess a disclaimer is in order. Do not do this if you don't have the confidence or done more research than read my blog. I take no responsibility to anything you damage (either your possessions or yourself) while trying this or anything else posted.

Pictures

Finally got the pictures of the headlights and an output of my original halogen lights.

 

New clear headlight

 

Back of new headlight

 

Old headlight as installed on car

 

Notice the extra nut that needs to be undone before the headlight can be removed. This is why the side turn signal has been removed.

 

New and old Headlight side by side. No real apparent differences.

 New headlight installed. Notice the gap down the bottom close to the bumper. not too noticeable.

 

 There is a bit of a gap difference from top to bottom of the light next to the turn signal.

Output of old headlights. This will serve as a comparison for when the retrofit is done.

So this week the order is going through for the HID kit. Pretty much decided to go for 35W ballasts as 55W is pretty much overkill. I would like it but it serves no real purpose. I will be purchasing the Philips 85122+ as they are the standard globes used or OEM (original equipment manufacturer).

Well that's it for today. I won't be posting until the order goes through as I will just be boring you with more ranting on HID's!

Projectors

No real update today; just put back the original headlight into the car. So today this post will be about projector choice. From what I've researched, the Ebay ones are not worth it even though they are like $50 as they don't really enhance the light output or have a clear cut off. The only real place to get them is from America (www.theretrofitsource.com)

They sell quite a few projectors but to not over complicate things I will be going for the 'easier' option of the Morimoto Mini D2S projector kit.

Now there are two kits to chose from which do not require cutting of the back of the headlight. The difference in the kits are the globes used and the size of the projector. The Morimoto Mini H1 (MH1) kit is the smaller of the two and uses H1 HID globes. These are non standard and would probably be hard to source more globes (unless you want to ship them from the US for $50). This is the main reason I have chosen to go with the Morimoto Mini D2S kit. The D2S globe is the standard globe used in HID's in cars like the Honda Accord and BMW's (if anyone knows if this is not the case, please comment and let me know, thanks). These globes would readily be available in Australia.

The HID globes last way longer than Halogen globes and do not burn out. They dull in output over time and some colour shift which is why you probably see some Accords with way bluer lights than others. I can ramble on about this stuff but that can be for a later post :P

New clear headlights

Went to get the Gen4.5 clear headlights from the ebay store today. Ended up checking out the differences between the Gen4 and Gen4.5. Initially I could not see any difference, so I ended up purchasing the Gen4.5 headlights only and hoping like crazy they fit without modification. Fortunately they do. I will post pictures when I get a chance but they sit flush using the old headlamps mounting frames. I only changed the left hand side light so that I can compare the two lights.

So next was to adjust the beam so that the new pattern matched the old. I oddly found that I couldn't match the beam so I left it as it was getting dark. When I reversed the car and saw the beam :O the new headlight's beams were for LHD vehicles!!! No wonder why it was cheap huh? Anyway, this will not adversely affect the final result as the projectors will be for RHD.

Tomorrows job will be to put the old headlight back in and store away the new one until my projectors arrive.

First Post

This blog will follow my progress as I retrofit my headlights with proper HID projectors. The first step is to get clear headlight lens'.

My Camry is a Gen4 (1997-2000 model) which has fluted headlights. This means that the headlight uses the lens itself to disperse the light in the correct pattern. In Australia the light pattern has to be like below:

 

This is because oncoming traffic on the right will not get blinded by the flare of the lights going into their vision. 

With clear headlights (like in newer cars), the beam pattern is formed by using the reflector 'bucket' or by using projectors (which are like clear massive marbles).

Unfortunately for me, the Gen4.5 (2000-2002 model) Camry has clear headlights and the do not fit directly onto a Gen4 because the mounting brackets being different. From initial research, the Australian Gen4 and Gen4.5 Camry headlight lens have the exact same shape and are interchangeable. If this is the case, the retrofit should be easy! Otherwise, getting rid of the flutes will be a very painful process included sandpaper, glass and a lot of time.

My first step is to find a set of Gen4 and Gen4.5 headlights. At local auto shops, the prices are ranging from $99 - $160 each! I have managed to track down a pair for ~$99 on ebay which are TYC or Depo branded which are aftermarket OEM copies which should suffice. I will need to goto the sellers warehouse (local seller) and have a look at each of them side by side.

The long weekend is coming up so hopefully I will get sometime. I will update as I progress.