Ideas for re-activating parking lights in converted headlights

[PaulE]

I have a beautiful set of headlights that were converted to Fred's (Nine8Six) projector headlights by Particlewave. Despite the fact that the COB Angel Eyes were wired through relays, so that they operate in parking light only mode and turn off when the headlights go on, and I never drive with just the parking lights on, the Angel Eyes have still failed. This isn't a knock on anyone, this is just what happens when the COB Angel Eyes live next door to the hot projector beams in a machined aluminum casing.

What I plan to eventually do is restore the parking light function to my headlights. I would like to use the original parking light hole in the headlight unit. I don't want to add an LED light in the bumper grill or anything else external. The issue I have is that the wires for the high beam/low beam shutter in the projector unit are run through the old parking light hole. The Angel Eye wires also go through that hole, but they can just be snipped.

One option I have thought of is to use the original parking light sockets in the original holes. But that would involve removing the exterior headlight lenses to re-route the high beam/low beam shutter wires. I'm interested in any ideas that could be done without opening the headlights up.

Would it be possible to notch the original parking light socket so that it could still be inserted and not interfere with the wires going through the hole? Would the parking light melt the insulation on those wires being so close together? If so, could I use an LED light which runs cooler? I would still run the parking lights through the relays so that these lights only came on in parking light only mode and turned off when the headlights are on.

Any thought on this approach or other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

The good news is that I live in New Jersey and this isn't an inspection issue for me. The projector beam headlights are so superior to the original halogen headlights that I will stick with them. I'd just like to eventually get parking lights back.

As an aside, has anyone seen or heard from Fred/Nine8Six? His last activity on the forum was on November 14, 2017. I hope he is ok.

[particlewave]

I would definitely not put an incandescent bulb next to those wires.

You could notch out a slot for the wires here and use an LED:

[PaulE]

Awesome, thanks Particlewave!

[PaulE]

Well I finally got around to re-activating my parking lights and disconnecting the dead Angel Eyes. I was able to re-route the black and red wires for the high/low beam shutter out of the hole for the parking light and through the small square hole under the old low beam hole where the projector is mounted. To do that, I removed the high beam, and snaked a thin stiff wire through the parking light hole and out the small square hole. To that wire, I attached a piece of 30 lb fishing line. Then I snipped the black and red wires and carefully taped them to a loop tied in the fishing line, and pulled the line out through the square hole, and the wires came with it. Then I reconnected the wires using low temperature butt connectors with solder in them. I heated them up with my heat gun on the low setting and held the joint wearing a heavy leather glove so that the heat gun didn't melt anything else.

To disconnect the Angel Eyes I used my small wire cutters and inserted them as far as possible into the parking light hole and cut them. I then cut off the ballasts so that I just had the blue and white wires, one coming off the relay and the other out of the headlight harness.

I wasn't able to rewire the old sockets I had for the parking lights. I got the terminals out of the sockets but couldn't get the crimps apart to get new wires in. So I found an almost identical socket with wires on eBay for $8 a pair and ordered them. They are just slightly shorter than the originals and fit right into the holes for the parking lights. I again used the shrink tube butt joints with low temperature solder and connected the 2 tails of the parking light sockets to the blue and white wires.

I now have parking lights that come on at the parking light setting of the headlight switch and go off when the headlights are turned on. It always makes me feel a little uncomfortable when I start cutting wires and think I know what I'm doing. Now that it's completed I'm feeling very self-satisfied that I was able to get this done without attempting to remove the outer headlight lens! Thanks to Particlewave for the original setup and advice that got me going. Here are a few pictures-