Headlights/foglights lamp replacements

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NVSteve
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Postby NVSteve » Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:59 pm

remyek wrote: Ok, will have a look at it. Thanks bro! We use orange bulbs or blank bulbs with orange lights. You can easy spot a american import car on that yellow field as non of the europeans for ages has been produced with that. Some find it cool, others dont... I think I like it all clear.... do you know if it is possible to remove?
All you have to do is put the entire headlight assembly in the oven for a bit, then remove it & gently pry the large outer lens off to give you access to the interior. Should be pretty easy to pull off the orange lenses & install something of your own.


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remyek
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Postby remyek » Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:27 pm

NVSteve wrote:
remyek wrote: Ok, will have a look at it. Thanks bro! We use orange bulbs or blank bulbs with orange lights. You can easy spot a american import car on that yellow field as non of the europeans for ages has been produced with that. Some find it cool, others dont... I think I like it all clear.... do you know if it is possible to remove?
All you have to do is put the entire headlight assembly in the oven for a bit, then remove it & gently pry the large outer lens off to give you access to the interior. Should be pretty easy to pull off the orange lenses & install something of your own.
Yeah, hoped 4 a simpler sollution... Did you have original xenon?? Is the ballast outside the original lamps or is it internal?

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NVSteve
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Postby NVSteve » Tue Jan 18, 2011 4:33 pm

remyek wrote:Yeah, hoped 4 a simpler sollution... Did you have original xenon?? Is the ballast outside the original lamps or is it internal?
We are what you would call a bunch of unlucky bastards in the US. Very few vehicles have HIDs, but it seems more and more of them are at least using projectors these days. So, no ballasts off the old one. I haven't looked at my new headlights yet, but there is a fairly large plate/cover over 2 of the bulb locations, so there might (fingers crossed) be enough room inside for the ballast. Everyone that I've seen who has swapped out halogens for HIDs has mounted the ballasts under the bumper or somewhere in the engine bay. I saw a post somewhere where a guy had 6 ballasts attached to his 4 Runner metal bumper, underneath the plastic bumper cover.

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remyek
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Postby remyek » Wed Jan 19, 2011 5:40 am

NVSteve wrote:
remyek wrote:Yeah, hoped 4 a simpler sollution... Did you have original xenon?? Is the ballast outside the original lamps or is it internal?
We are what you would call a bunch of unlucky bastards in the US. Very few vehicles have HIDs, but it seems more and more of them are at least using projectors these days. So, no ballasts off the old one. I haven't looked at my new headlights yet, but there is a fairly large plate/cover over 2 of the bulb locations, so there might (fingers crossed) be enough room inside for the ballast. Everyone that I've seen who has swapped out halogens for HIDs has mounted the ballasts under the bumper or somewhere in the engine bay. I saw a post somewhere where a guy had 6 ballasts attached to his 4 Runner metal bumper, underneath the plastic bumper cover.
Ok I will call my nissan dealership and ask them. If I could just reuse the orginale xenon that would be best :)

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pathology
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Postby pathology » Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:43 am

pathology wrote:I just replaced my bulbs with the "Sylvania 9007 XV BP TWIN XtraVision Halogen Headlight - Pack of 2" from Amazon. Cost me under $20, and it's a big improvement. Wonder if bulb switching works better in the 08+?
Update, These already suck, I still can't see anything at night. Please, let some company make HID replacements for 08+...

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mar1
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Postby mar1 » Fri Jan 21, 2011 11:34 am

yeah i ordered the phillips xtreme vision bulbs.

best lights I've tried so far, but still suck compared to other cars I've had.

Rogue9
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Postby Rogue9 » Fri Jan 21, 2011 11:57 am

I bought part id #111111 from Anzo.
Their website said it fit from 05-09.
I got a 10 but I know 9 and 10 are the same.

Well took EVERYTHING apart and no they didn't fit. Same look but 15% smaller overall.
So since I had everything apart I went and bought a pair of HID's. only cost $70 canadian local.

I didn't really want to since I did them before on my Grand Am and I really wanted projectors to limit the splash but I didn't want regular lights.

Put them in, yes they spill a lot but they also help a lot. The factory cut off is pretty good. Just below the rear view mirrors of the car infront.
Now maybe we have a lot of import modders in my city (Vancouver, Canada) but the cops don't give us grief about HID in factory housings unless you're pulled over for other car violations. Even then unless you're forced to go into a certified vehicle inspection they won't write up the HID's.

As for other drivers, I've lived with it all my driving life, and it's a pretty normal thing around here.
Except there are some with projectors which point them as high as high beams and because of the focusing lens, those REALLY hurt.

just my 2 cents.

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pathology
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Postby pathology » Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:33 pm

Rogue9 wrote:I bought part id #111111 from Anzo.
Their website said it fit from 05-09.
I got a 10 but I know 9 and 10 are the same.

Well took EVERYTHING apart and no they didn't fit. Same look but 15% smaller overall.
So since I had everything apart I went and bought a pair of HID's. only cost $70 canadian local.

I didn't really want to since I did them before on my Grand Am and I really wanted projectors to limit the splash but I didn't want regular lights.

Put them in, yes they spill a lot but they also help a lot. The factory cut off is pretty good. Just below the rear view mirrors of the car infront.
Now maybe we have a lot of import modders in my city (Vancouver, Canada) but the cops don't give us grief about HID in factory housings unless you're pulled over for other car violations. Even then unless you're forced to go into a certified vehicle inspection they won't write up the HID's.

As for other drivers, I've lived with it all my driving life, and it's a pretty normal thing around here.
Except there are some with projectors which point them as high as high beams and because of the focusing lens, those REALLY hurt.

just my 2 cents.
Which HID's did you go with?

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pawjr74
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Postby pawjr74 » Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:36 am

I'm curious if anyone has tried the "Revotec" headlights?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/05-06-07 ... 3898wt_939

I ran across these with the black background and think they would look great on my black Pathfinder.

The plugs & wiring look to be better quality on these vs some of the other headlamps I've come across.

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NVSteve
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Postby NVSteve » Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:46 am

pawjr74 wrote:I'm curious if anyone has tried the "Revotec" headlights?
Pretty much identical to the ones I bought from Carid.com. Probably the same thing, for a bit less. I like them for the most part. The projector low beams have a pretty nice cutoff, but I can't really say that they really light up the road any more than OEM. I'm going to throw some HIDs into mine this weekend, so I'll post how that goes.

tuleman
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Postby tuleman » Fri Feb 04, 2011 9:04 am

well fyi i have installed cheap ebay hid retrofit kis. the yellow ones for fogs, and 5500k high/low kit for headlights. when i drive at night i very rarely turn on my highbeams. it is like daylight in front of my vehicle.

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NVSteve
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Postby NVSteve » Sun Feb 06, 2011 10:12 pm

Forgive me in advance, but this is going to be one of those typical lame reviews. In short, I installed HIDs from Xtreme HID (purchased through kbcarstuff.com in Canada). The only caveat is that I installed these into aftermarket projector assemblies from carid.com, not the stock assemblies with reflector housings. The install took me about 5 hours, but only because I'm super anal about how everything needs to go together. I removed the front grill (didn't need to), the battery & the air filter housing (more on that below).

The kit itself is fairly nice, especially compared to all the other kit photos I have seen. The wiring is very beefy, with protective sleeves, and includes a relay (lots of posts elsewhere from people who installed without a relay & ended up with lots of problems). The ballasts seem very heavy duty as well & are supposedly completely weathersealed. One thing I remembered from a bunch of other forums is the abundance of complaining concerning the screw down tabs on the ballasts. I can honestly say that if you use a bolt/screw for the tabs on these, they will not be bending or breaking unlike so many others.

The kit:

Image

Comes with gloves, wiring & relays, ballasts, bulbs, 3M sticky tape for the ballasts & a few black zip ties:

Image

I ordered the Xtreme Digital HID kit with Philips 4300k bulbs. They also have kits without Philips bulbs, and a kit called the Volt that is cheaper than the Xtreme.

More of the contents:

Image

The ballast:

Image

The bulb (didn't want to remove the foam), wires & rubber grommet:

Image

Here's the back of the headlight housing with the rear cover removed. The shiny portion is the projector housing, which looks to be cheap-as-dirt plastic. I had to drill a hole in the cover for the new wires, along with a ton of wire cutting & crimp on connectors added. I have it set up now in such a way that if I want to switch back to the regular bulbs, I just have to pull a few plugs and reconnect them differently & I'm good to go.

Image

All of the pictures are from the driver's side, as that was the most difficult to install. The wire loom they provide is virtually ideal for our engine bay. Instead of running anything up front near the radiator, I ran the wires from the battery, back around the inside of the engine bay (following existing wire looms), then along the driver's side loom to the headlight. There are more than enough places to throw on an extra ground or relay. I think I used about 60 zip ties when all was said and done.

Here's the rear cover installed with the new wiring poking out of the new grommet:

Image

Here's a view of the installed wiring on the driver's side. The only zip ties I had were those clear/white ones, so they kind of stand out if you're attentive to detail. The ballast is stuck via the 3M doublesided tape, and I also ran some hi temp silicone all the way around it. If it ever comes loose, which I honestly don't think it will, I can just flip it on the side and zip tie it to the wire loom.

Image

The only 2 problems I encountered with the install both dealt with the air filter housing. There are 3 bolts holding it in place, 2 of which are direct access. The 3rd is on the bottom of the housing in a little recess very close to the back of the headlight. It took me close to an hour getting that bolt tightened because there is no room for a wrench or a socket. Really wish I had an offset 10mm. By the time I finished Saturday night around 8pm, I fired up the lights. Only the passenger's side was working. Great. I just stared at that damned air filter housing and let out a huge amount of profanity for 5 minutes or so before giving the housing a goodnight middle finger and calling it quits. Next morning, I popped the hood & mentally thought about what I had done the previous day. I attacked the wires I had zip tied on the back of the headlight first, because I remember bumping into them quite a bit while I was trying to tighten the lower air filter housing bolt. Sure enough, one of my connectors had come undone. Both lights worked. Good, a step in the right direction. I went out for a quick drive tonight to see the fruit of my labor. WARNING: really crappy photos follow. I should have dialed in all my settings manually from the last time, but was too anxious to "see the light" and forgot.

I'm kind of facing the wall a bit in this one. The passenger's light is hitting the wall in that brightest section, but at least it gives more of an idea of the cutoff.

Image

Another showing the cutoff. Yes, these are bright, but the picture makes them brighter than they really are.

Image

All in all, the kit is good. Takes a few seconds for the bulbs to reach full output, but no biggie. Certainly much better than the halogens they replaced, but I think because my projectors are so crappy, I just don't have any of the awe factor. Maybe I was just expecting far too much, or am simply just not used to them yet.

Memphis
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Postby Memphis » Wed Feb 09, 2011 8:36 pm

So Im pretty new to this site,, only been on it of about two weeks.. Im slowly going through all the threads and trying to play catch up lol,,, anyways

So I saw this thread and wanted to put in my 2cents.. Ive done the whole retrofit on my 07...

I opened up my housings and custom installed Infinity FX35 Bixexon Projectors in mine.. I have a DDM Tuning 8000k D2S HID 55watt kit. I also took out the amber reflectors and installed 6000k LED turn signals and parking lights.. The difference is night and day,, the projectors have the perfect cut off and these are TRUE HIDs... If I only turn on my head lights then I have no on coming glare at all.. But if I have my fogs on which are alos HIDs then I get the anoying glare that causes people to flash me.. I will be this spring replacing my fogs with Projector fogs so I have a nice cut off on those lights to to avoid any glare.

I will get some pics of it soon and post them up...

Like stated before in previous post,, this whole set up wasnt cheap.. I paid $425 for the projectors and took me 2days to cut open the housing and install them.. But I tell ya, its worth every penny to do it this way and to do it right..

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pawjr74
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Postby pawjr74 » Wed Feb 09, 2011 10:03 pm

"The only 2 problems I encountered with the install both dealt with the air filter housing. There are 3 bolts holding it in place, 2 of which are direct access. The 3rd is on the bottom of the housing in a little recess very close to the back of the headlight. It took me close to an hour getting that bolt tightened because there is no room for a wrench or a socket. Really wish I had an offset 10mm."

FYI, you can simply pull the air cleaner housing off from the bottom bolt. I always take off the 2 that are easy to access. There is no need to take the lower bolt out. When you're done you simply push the air cleaner housing back over the bolt and you'll feel the rubber snap into place.

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NVSteve
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Postby NVSteve » Thu Feb 10, 2011 8:47 am

pawjr74 wrote:FYI, you can simply pull the air cleaner housing off from the bottom bolt. I always take off the 2 that are easy to access. There is no need to take the lower bolt out. When you're done you simply push the air cleaner housing back over the bolt and you'll feel the rubber snap into place.
Damn! Now you tell me :lol: I had no idea I could simply pop it off-good to know.


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