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I wanted to upgrade my headlights on my ‘05 Super. Given the age of the existing lenses, a simple rebulb to LED was out of the question.
Besides, LEDs in a lens designed for Halogen H13 bulbs can be quite annoying to the oncoming driver. My Mustang and Venza, and my daughter’s Audi are all projector beam headlights and I absolutely love them.
I watched a video on YouTube by “Living on Wheels” to get some tricks and tips on the build though there were some surprises along the way.
Below are the parts purchased with prices. This is minus some Schottky diodes I didn’t realize I needed until testing my harness. More on that in a later post.
First things first, had to open these lenses. Took all of the metal hardware and screws off the assembly. My understanding is that a lot of these lenses are glued together using Permaseal which makes them a bear to get apart. Luckily the ones I bought are sealed with Butyl sealant.
Placed an assembly face up in my wife’s oven 😜. Temperature set to 200 degrees and let it heat up for 15 minutes. Used a screwdriver to gently pry and release the clips. Both lenses came apart with relative ease. The glue was a little more difficult to come off. Used a heat gun and some flat blade screw drivers to clean out all the channels.
Got the projectors mounted into the housings. Cut off the diffuser for the halogen lamp and had to shave off some of the plastic in the back so the nut would thread onto the stem of the projector. It took some trial and error but got them mounted.
Installed new butyl glue in the channels then sent them back to the oven to soften the glue. Once heated pressed them together and made sure all the clips fastened.
Ha ha….sure will, but I’m not finished yet. I have this pesky thing called a mortgage that required me to go to work. I also had to go back to the drawing board on the harness. I’ll have an update shortly once I draw it out on something other than a napkin.
Projectors with H1 bulbs require 12v to the ballast to light the bulb. When switching to high beam, 12v is needed to energize a solenoid that pulls down the shutter. The shutter in low beam only blocks the beam for a sharp cut off line.
The oem H13 Halogens have 2 elements, one for low beam one for high beam. When low beam is energized, the high beam circuit is off. When the high beam circuit is energized, the low beam circuit is off. Since the ballast needs power ANY time the bulb is illuminated, this presents a little problem.
My first attempt was to use two Schottky diodes to keep power from back feeding the shutter solenoid. Maybe I got the wrong sized diodes, or perhaps the concept is wrong, but that plan failed. I went with what I know and made the harnesses with relays.
Got the new projector head lights installed. They do look really good and modern, but I definitely had some trouble with them. Initially they seemed to point slightly outward instead of straight. I was able to get it them aligned better using one of the larger washers that came with the kit.
The next issue was that the I could not get the drivers side projector to aim up. I need them adjusted for 2” of drop at 25’. The drivers side beam hit the ground at 25’. The passenger side I couldn’t get higher than 8” of drop. After looking at both lenses, it looked like I trimmed them to fit the projector stem unevenly. Back to doing some sanding which sucks because the lights are glued together. Where’s the dust gonna go? In the lens.
the lenses look exactly like the ones in my headlights.
High beam is slightly better than the original headlights. But unfortunately the low beam is just as bad as with the original headlights.
Do you have any experience of driving at night with your upgrade?
the lenses look exactly like the ones in my headlights.
High beam is slightly better than the original headlights. But unfortunately the low beam is just as bad as with the original headlights.
Do you have any experience of driving at night with your upgrade?
I did drive home at night last week, but that was with one projector pointing at the road about 30’ in front of the truck, and the other about 8” lower than it should be at 25’. I will say that even that is an improvement over the stock halogens in my ‘05. That could be because of using a 6k temperature H1 which just made things appear brighter. Also, the stock lenses were a little hazy due to age. I would polish the old lenses about every 6 months, but that only goes so far.
Got them tuned in and adjusted. I’m very pleased with how they turned out. Was able to get the 2” of drop at 25’ which is what’s required to not blind other drivers.
You can see the sharp cut off line. The low part of the cutoff measures 31” tall. The center of the beam at each lens is about 33” from the ground. The right projector is slightly canted. I may try to fix that. Obviously this is “low beam” with the shutters up.
“High beam”, shutter solenoid energized.
Low beam, you can see the cut off line on the corn as well as the orange tint from the stock halogen driving lights. No high beam flashes on the way home so they must be aimed ok. I don’t have much more adjustment.
High beam is just totally incredible. These things are super bright. I am really impressed.
I have a little more tweaking to do, but I’m really happy so far.
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