Johnny C
New member
First, I wrote these before I saw Michael's excellent instructions with photos in the technical section. These are a bit more detailed - partly because I didn't take any photos.
Preparation is everything, get the right tools to start with and the job's a good'un. I had some good instructions, but as with a lot of instructions written by people in the business they didn't include the 'small' things that are second nature to these people. I figured them out easily enough but I've written these so even someone as technically challenged as me can do the job. These are to make a tidy job of it; the notes I was given takes a few shortcuts which are fine but I like things to be neat - I'll note the differences.
You will need:
A Dremel drill with narrow conical grinder bit (narrower than glass bit of the new bulb)
This is used to open up the metal body and ceramic reflector to insert the bulb. If you haven't got one of these you need a small diamond file or a warding file
A drill with a holecutter bit slightly larger than a 10p piece (22mm according to Michael's instructions in the technical section) - just big enough to cut a hole to take the entire bulb. If you haven't got one, you'll need to cut a hole using a small (2mm) ordinary drill bit to make lots of small holes.
A Stanley knife
A crimper and some male/female flatblade 12V connectors preferably with plastic shields on
Insulation tape
Superglue
A multimeter.
The same instructions apply to both sides. It is quicker to grind/file the headlamp castings and cut the back headlamp unit plates together before you start messing with the wiring, you can do those in the dry warmth of the kitchen at a well-lit table. Well you can if like me you wait until the missus has gone out
but connect the headlamp on side first just in case no matter what you do they don't work. The hole cut in the headlamp casing backplate can be blanked off if that happens. 1) Bulb connections.
Remove the headlamp assembly. Remove the old bulb. You will notice that there's one connection which is a flat-blade connector and another that is round. Cut off the round connector with about 1 inch of cable. Strip the end of the wire still attached to the round connector and attach a male connector. Keep this in the glovebox, if you need to switch back to the old lights you'll need to attach this to the loom for the old light bulb. If you just crimped the round connecter you wouldn't be able to reinstall by the side of the road on a dark night.
Strip the end of the wire that you cut the round connector off and crimp a new female flat-blade connector.
2) Getting the new bulb in
Test if the bulb will go into the casting on the headlamp. If it does, fine. If not, you will probably find that the bulb goes in a little way, but catches on the inside of the casting and the ceramic reflector.
If you don't have a dremel drill then you need to use a file, preferably a metal warding file. If you have a dremel with a long thin tapered grinder then just gently grind the inside of the bulb hole so that you are grinding not just the inside edge of the hole (where the reflector is) but tapering a few mm back as well. The casting is fairly soft. Not only is this quicker than with a file but because you have to angle the dremel any dust gets spat out - if you're doing it by hand you'll ideally only grind on the outstroke. I don't know what the metal was but metal dust + heat source is not a good idea, especially if the casting is the type of magnesium/aluminium alloy that they use on motorbikes. If you do get dust inside to be honest it's unlikely to flash but you never know; I misspent too much time as a student blowing things up with powder/hotair mix to trust it!
When you've ground enough off to get the bulb in without having to force it it's done; if you have to force it in, if you come to take it out it may break off inside the assembly especially if it's hot and expanded.
3) Feeding the wire through the cover of the headlamp.
I wrote this before I realised Michael had done his instructions, his pictures in the technical section demonstrate it better than I can write it.
The instructions I had said file a slot in the headlight cover where the grommet is, big enough to take two wires, However there was a good grommet on the wiring that came with the HID upgrade so I thought it better to do it neatly. The downside is if you need to replace the full beam bulb you'll need to unclip the HID bulb to make it easier, but that's no major hardship - I've never needed to replace one of them (until now of course when sod's law both will go in the next two weeks!)..
The cover that unclips has a fairly big flat space with no obstructions inside, that's a good place to put it. Check the grommet with the upgrades, there was plenty of overlap on the grommet with mine. You will need to feed the bulb through a hole in the headlight casing if you're doing it this way. I cut a hole with a holecutter that was slightly bigger than a 10p coin, (22mm according to Michael), big enough to get the bulb through but not so big the grommet has nothing to overlap. Pull the wires feeding the bulb through the grommet so that they will reach from the grommet up to the bulb hole.
Now take you're multimeter and check which of the two 12V feeds from the loom is live. IIRC the yellow one is earth, it looked like it would be as it connects to the housing but best be on the safe side and check.
4) Feed the wires through the bulkhead.
Some people seem happy with bubblewrap and cable ties. if you're happy letting them slide around fine. The ballast doesn't seem to get hotter than body temperature even after a 40mile run, so there's no worry about plastic melting (which is worth noting if you're planning on doing the Rennlist method - people there seemed concerned about having the ballast inside the leadlight unit but they'd no need) Anyway I'm not happy having them loose in the wing, if I brake hard the ballasts I have are quite heavy and even with bubblewrap I wouldn't want them catapulting forward as the may undo the connectors. The connector clips seemed robust but come apart fairly easily. So I'd rather the ballasts were inside the bonnet space.
The instructions said to liberally lubricate the large grommet through the wing to the bonnet space and coax the connectors through. I presume he meant the large round grommet to the rear that Michael used, but as this would have restricted the amount of spare cable to remove with headlamp, I decided to use the smaller long square grommet with the flap towards the front of the car. On Michael's photo showing final placement of the ballast on the driver's side it's the one to the left partially obscuring the front of the ballast by the heatsink. I've no idea what that small flap is for, but it's there and it's just big enough to get the large plug through if you remove the grommet from the hole, cut it to slip the wires into, superglue it back together and pop it back into the hole. The grommet isn't big enough to get the large plug through without removal as there is rubber cushioning on the plug that gets caught. There's two connectors from the ballast that need to go through first; inside the wing there's a couple of lugs or wire guides that block the plugs going through easily, they just need a bit of fiddling to get them through. Now the large connector from the headlight loom needs to go through the wing to the ballast in the bonnet space. The easiest thing is to remove the grommet from the wing, cut it halfway up the long side, pop the large connector through the wing (which is fairly easy without the grommet), put the grommet round the cable and stick it back together with a spot of superglue then put it back into the wing. All the grommet is going to do is stop the wires rubbing the metal edge, there's too big a hole for a seal. So as long as the grommet stays in place it's fine. Connect the large connector to the ballast and feed as much wire through to the wing as you can then locate the ballast behind the carpet. I will at some point make a fixing - there's a couple of protruding bolts and a fixing point on the ballast so a few bits of flat steel and a drill and 30secs should do it. My instructions said fix them with Velcro, but there wasn't enough flat space to get a good fix, especially on the drivers side. My ballasts seem slightly larger than Michael's.
5) connect the wires up.
Pop the grommet into the headlight cover, insert the bulb and clip it in. make sure there's enough wire from the bulb to the grommet. You know which is the positive flat-blade feed from the loom, that goes to the live red flatblade lead on the HID wiring and the earth to the black lead. So connect the flat-blade connectors, if you've used the non-shielded connectors wrap a good bit of insulation tape around each of them. Clip the headlamp cover back on.
Then connect the two final leads coming from the headlamp unit to the ballast connectors. Check the light at this stage. At first mine didn't work, I checked a few things and after a few times found that one the plugs needed reconnecting.
When it works, push the two plugs well back (or they get unplugged getting the headlamp in), and replace the headlamp unit.
Then repeat for the other side.
