Notes about Headlight Retrofit

[78F350]

If I'm not busy at work tomorrow I plan to bring them in and do all of the wiring. As suggested in a PM, I could just use Plastidip to coat the wires where the insulation is bad, but I have plenty of wire harnesses from cars that I have scrapped.

After I get them put together and installed, I'll take some pictures of how they illuminate vs the H7 bulb.

[78F350]

I made a little more progress, but still don't have a light finished.
I had thought that the pins from the LED adapter cable would work in the headlight connector. They are smaller and latch on one side, where the original pins latch on both sides.

If your wires are still good, it's probably best to cut them and do a crimp connection to the wires for the LED light. Since my wires are bad, I soldered the last .5 inch with the connector to the LED wires.

Without fully assembling them or aiming, I stuck it in the car to check on progress. It is a clean white light, not too blue or yellow. The turn signal blinks very fast. I think that having the original turn bulb also installed will correct that. ...or just wiring the amber LED in as 'Fog' or 'Parking'.


The lights work on dim right now, but not bright. There are two grounds in the headlight harness and I only have one (common) connected. The LED light only uses one ground for both bright and dim. I still want to get a look at the wiring diagram to trace where it all goes before I decide how to connect it.

[Zzorro]

Great thread. Thanks for posting. Will stay tuned.

[pilot4fn]

Double.....

[78F350]

I realized that I never did a follow-up. The LED lights have been in my Red daily beater for a while now and illuminate the road much better than the yellowed halogen lights.

In a previous post I had mentioned that the brights didn't work. There was no problem with the wiring. I found out that the fuse was blown and the brights hadn't been working with the halogen either until I replaced it.

Some day I may do a proper polish on these lights, but for now, having the yellowed crust removed is good enough for this car. You can make this mod look really nice if you care to.

I kept the original turn signal wired up along with the one built into the LED light. With just the LED, it was blinking too fast.

I did this in such a way that the original aiming screws for the headlight were intact with the mounting in the reflector. I'm glad I did because I needed to adjust both lights down a couple degrees from where they were first installed.
Here's a couple pics of my dirty car.

Fog and turn:


Dim and bright:

[preppyr6]

Wow I wish I had seen this before I dove into my project. I'm retro'ing in 2.5" projectors with Pivot Profile halos (a LOT of work...). Making progress and running into same issues you were (i.e. disintegrating wiring). This is very inspirational and definitely gets me excited about finishing my lights.

[JBauer]

Those look great. Just a thought. Retrofitlab.com sells just a metal centering brackets that replaces the bowl for around $30 if I remember right. Your headlight might be able to be mounted to these some how.