Lens swap

[Jacob76]

I started a thread at another forum a while ago but I thought I'd put it here too. This winter I did a projector lens swap and made some modifications to the stock projector housing to reduce/eliminate glare. It took a while because I couldn't do everything all at once. But it's finally finished and I think the results are really good.

I baked the headlights to pull them apart. Inside you'll find the mounting plate for the projector lens and the high beam reflector. Squeeze the two white clips together to release them. Then use a philips screwdriver at the adjustment screw to unthread it from the black housing.

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0332.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0331.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0322sm.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0324sm.jpg

[Jacob76]

Now to the lens. The lens is 3" diameter and about 30mm high. The flat side is smooth but the curved side has a slight texture to it. This blurs the cutoff and dims output a little bit.

The Retrofit Source has clear polished glass lenses for different applications. The have one they make for Mazda 3 owners that's also 3"x30mm. $55 for the set of two. You get a better, more even output and a nice bluish purple line right at the cutoff.

This is the stock lens.

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0325sm.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0327sm.jpg

The TRS lens is the same dome height as stock. The diameter of the flange is *slightly* bigger than stock. I had to grind a little off the diameter to get it to fit in the housing same as stock. They send you these thick wire rings to place in the groove to take up the space but I found it wasn't that stable and there was more blue in the cutoff line than I prefer.

[Jacob76]

Now we move to the glare. These pictures show my headlights with no modifications except for a plug and play HID kit.

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_9120sm.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_9121sm.jpg

That's caused by that square protrusion in the front of the cutoff shield here:

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0322sm.jpg

I removed it with a cutting bit on my dremel.

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0404.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0405.jpg

[Jacob76]

In that last picture you can see I screwed up the top of the cutoff shield. I wound up taking a file to that and filing down the ridge the rest of the way over. It gave it that step up in the beam pattern you see sometimes on true HIDs. I measured the distance from the end of the shield to where I stopped filing and replicated this on the other projector so they'd match. This ended up giving me a good step up to light up road signs on the side of the road but not blind oncoming traffic.

After filing, I covered the hole in the shield with some 3M body repair tape and painting it flat black with high temp paint.

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0421.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0422.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/front.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/back.jpg

[Jacob76]

These pictures show the difference in clarity between the stock and TRS lenses

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/stock3.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/TRS3.jpg

[Jacob76]

This shows the stock lens in the housing compared to TRS. This is before I reduced the diameter of the TRS lens to fit in the housing.

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/stock1.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/TRS1.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/stock2.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/TRS2.jpg

[Jacob76]

I used butyl rope from Sound Deadener Showdown to seal the lights back up.

Here are some pictures I took before sealing the lights back up comparing the modified with lens swap to 100% stock and stock housing with HID bulbs:

Modified housing with lens swap and HID on the left, stock on the right:
http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0472.jpg

Modified on the left, stock with HID on the right:
http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0473.jpg

Just the stock housing with HID:
http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0474.jpg

Just the modified housing with HID:
http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0475.jpg

And another:
http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0469.jpg

[Jacob76]

Here are pictures I took once everything was sealed up. You'll notice the passenger housing is a little off. Whenever I adjusted it, it put the left side of the passenger beam above the driver side beam, but the right side of the passenger beam below that of the driver side beam. I was able to adjust this with all the mounting tabs and the sleeves the bottom bolts go through to get it perfectly flat all the way across. I haven't taken pictures yet to show that.

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0542sm.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0543sm.jpg

Below the cutoff, in the beam:
http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0544sm.jpg

In the cutoff:
http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0545sm.jpg

http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0546sm.jpg

Above the cutoff:
http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t456/jacobG8/IMG_0547sm.jpg

[Jacob76]

Friday night I finally got to drive the car after dark to see how the new lights did. They're awesome. Very even distribution of light and nothing above the cutoff to blind other drivers. It lights up people's yards in neighborhoods and lights up the opposite lanes of a divided highway but it's low enough not to get into people's faces.

[Jacob76]

damn posted this in the wrong forum! Can a mod move this to the G8 section? or the DIY?

[l_c_vo]

Nice work. I would do this if I could find a used set of lights at a LOW price

[Jacob76]

Yeah that's what I had to do. I got a set for pretty cheap on eBay and wound up ruining one. The cost of all 3 used lights was still cheaper than 1 new one.

[jonnynadeau]

Nice write up, I'm going to redo my headlights w/o the halo and LED's. I LOVE my color-match though.

How hard were they to seal back up? How did you do it, exactly?


iPhone, Tapatalk, enough said!

[Jacob76]

To get a good seal, I scraped the hardened black sealant out of the black half of the headlight. Also scraped the stuff off of the clear half. This took a long time. It's hard and it's really stuck on there. Look down the trough and you see the adhesive looks like a "U". Up on the sides and in the bottom. It helped to use a utility blade on the sides. Then used a philips screwdriver to kind of dig it out of the bottom.

The black side half of the housing will be pretty deformed after you take the headlight apart. I stuck it in the oven by itself at about 260* for 20 minutes or so to get it soft but not melting. I put some gloves on, took it out and started squeezing and molding the groove back into shape so the gap wasn't so big.

I had already bought some butyl rope from SoundDeadenerShowdown.com. I laid some down in the groove on the black half using the wax paper that came with the butyl. You can stretch the stuff to make it thinner so it fits.

Then I stuck both halves in the oven at 265* for another 20 minutes. Take them out and immediately squeeze the halves together. Try and get the tabs on the black half over the bumps on the clear half ASAP. Once you get them pretty close, I used a few clamps to really squeeze it at 4 points around the perimeter. The new butyl will remain soft for a few minutes so you'll have time to place a few clamps and tighten them down. I had to try a few spots and try again because they would slip off. Try to find 3 spots at least you can clamp and just leave it alone for about an hour or until it's room temp.

If there was any sort of gap around the edge after all this, I took some more butyl rope, stretched it thin and pressed into the gap. There were a couple spots in that groove that I actually cracked slightly when prying the headlight apart. So I made note of those spots and pressed some butyl into the outside of the black half in that spot. So it's sealed inside and out on those spots. But if you didn't crack it at all, you don't have to worry about that.

I did notice some condensation after it rained a couple days after I finished everything. But I took a guess that it was from fussing with the dustcaps and maybe opening up some of the holes the wires pass through in the grommets. So I added some extra RTV to the backs of the grommets. We haven't had much rain since then but I haven't had any condensation at all.

The two screws on the side of the headlight behind the turn signal were hard to get back in. I had to get them started before I stuck the whole thing in the oven. Just enough so I could see the screws were drawing the two halves together. If I waited until after the two halves were sealed together, I couldn't get them to thread.

If I can think of anything else, I'll post up.

[jonnynadeau]

Perfectly said, well written, time for me to try my own color matching headlights.

Thank you, my friend!


iPhone, Tapatalk, enough said!

[Matt82]

Good work. Great write up with a lot of good detail. By the looks of it, it was a good idea that turned out great results.

[Jacob76]

Just a couple other things about final assembly. The first time I put these back together, I noticed dust and fingerprints on the lenses when I thought I go them clean. These HIDs are great at highlighting dirt and stuff. Someone on the other board said a 50/50 mixture of denatured alcohol and distilled water cleans really well and has some anti-static properties.

I wiped down the entire inside of the housing with that mixture to clean it. Then I wiped again with a microfiber towel to get rid of streaks. For the lenses, I used the same alcohol/water mixture. Then I wiped them with one of those small microfiber towels you use for camera lenses and nice sunglasses. I was working on this stuff on my breaks at work so it helped to have the lenses and other pieces under the bright fluorescent lights. I got the lenses 100% streak free then dropped them into the housing.

You might also want to use some powder-free latex gloves when handling them. Less chance of getting oils and dirt on them.

Hmmm...what else...our oven is gas. The burning of the gas in there introduces quite a bit of humidity into the housings while they're sitting in there not sealed. Leave the dust caps off while you're waiting for them to seal and cool. Then you can use a hair dryer in one hole to dry it out if you notice some fog during that time.