HID projector headlights installation ’02 Honda CRV

It’s raining and cold! So it’s a good day to blog about something! HID projector headlights seem to be the “In thing” these days and I can see why!

 

Hi, dne’ here~ recently (give or take a month), I installed some HID projector headlights in our youngest daughters ’02 CRV. I had bought some aftermarket headlights due to the originals turning foggy, but the beams emitted were like holding two D cell powered lights in front of the vehicle for lighting! I can do better! (I hope).

 

 

 

I’ll admit, like most everyone out there in la la land, I wanted to do this upgrade for the least amount of money possible! You know, the American way of doing things? Unfortunately doesn’t always prove to be the best choice~ as I seem to find out most of the time the hard way!

Though there are a few stores to buy the projectors and necessities from, I bought mine from Ijdmtoy.com.  Sounding like a complete idiot on the phone talking to a sales rep there, I was sold a set of Fog lights, but realized after I received them that they didn’t have the solenoid to offer the High beam. So that was my first blunder! I paid to ship them back at my cost of course and got the next set of projectors soon enough.

 

 

The “fixture” here below is the projector and has the bullet cover over it (screws not included~ go figure). I soon realized after the amount of work to bake the housings open, I’d better go ahead and put in live Halo’s! The ones here in this pic are dummies~ kind of like me! lol  So, I pried these off and ordered the 70mm halo’s and the Audi accent lights.

 

 

With the dummy Halo’s removed, I needed to install the new Halo’s permanently. Sure don’t want them coming off down the road! I can hear our daughter, “Hey, my Halo’s fell off!” That wouldn’t be good!

 

Here the backside of the new Halo, I prepped it by lightly sanding it and the plastic housing as well, then~

 

 

I affixed the Halo by means of epoxy and taped the halo in place for a little while~ didn’t take long for the epoxy to set. You see the plug-in the background? They never have the other part of the plug to go with it! Why do they do that?:(

 

 

However, I ran into a problem~ the wires wouldn’t clear the housing to allow the projector to seat into its place to be secured by the screws that weren’t included.

 

 

Using my handy Dremmel tool with a thin cutoff wheel, I made slots to allow the wires to clear the projector housing. Darn I’m good! It’s looked much better after I cleaned it up! This wasn’t noticeable as it was on the bottom of the projector.

 

After all the tedious work, the light worked on the test bench and the projector fit perfectly! The Halo’s are quite bright! I’m happy!;)

 

 

Next was the Audi accent lighting. Audi was the first to come out with this distinct look, so I’ve been told. This LED strip I purchased from Ijdmtoy.com as well. It has self stick tape on it, but I further secured it with some superglue in hopes it doesn’t peel off!

 

 

Of course I must make sure that it works, so I connected it to a battery and it seems to be OK.

 

 

In the pic below, on the left upper attachment, I drilled a hole for the power and ground wires to run, then put a dab of epoxy to secure it.  The LED strip just makes the bend. Any more curvature and I may have had to pull out my heat gun to coax it.

 

With the Halo’s secured, I can put the bullet on (the chrome cover held by the screws in which I had to go to ACE hardware to buy).

I have to say one thing nice, this system doesn’t involved cutting the housing. This projector  mounts to the housing inside the headlight allowing adjustment with the original screws of the headlights to some degree of which may be seen in the next picture.

 

Of course there are two adjusting screws, vertical and horizontal. I should have cut off some of this screw. I actually could have gone a little higher with the vertical adjustment, but I forgot about it!

There is a little bracket which is affixed by three small screws(supplied).:)

 

Now the HID bulb can be installed held in place by a spring clip. If the bulb was ever to go out, it is replaceable.  Notice three sets of wires coming out of the back. 1) Halo, 2) Audi accent LED, 3) the HID bulb fed by the ballast providing the high intensity.  The original rubber was put on before all the wires were put in their places for becoming HOT or ready for what they are intended for. I used the trailer type connectors to connect the Audi and Halo’s to the parking light.

 

 

They’re both ready to mount on the vehicle for a test run.

 

 

With back part of the housing mounted onto the vehicle, I’m now able to test fire the projector lights.  I have connected the ballasts. The ballasts are sensitive to direction or polarity I suppose. In other words, it only works one way. Note: make darned sure the headlight housing is firmly bolted in place~ just a slight deviation might result in the lights being off  a bit~ speaking from experience.

 

 

Now this is where it gets a little testy! I had been thinking about this until up to this point, now I get to see what happens!  We have a high and a low beam~ I could only make it work one way, on low beam. Now matter how I wired it, I COULD NOT GET THE DIMMER CONTROL TO ACTIVATE THE HIGH BEAM SOLENOID!

These don’t work like one would think. It only has one element which emits the brilliant light. Inside the projector there is a flap which is activated by a solenoid which when activated, is lifted up allowing the full spectrum of the light~ thus a High beam.  In the pic below, you can just make out a little deviation in the light~ that is the little flap I spoke of. That flap will raise out of the way to allow the “high beam”~ I like to say, “Lazer Beam”!   This pic is during the day, but is quite bright when the sun goes down.  Here I had the lights aimed perfectly, but after everything was bolted back up, the right headlight was off a tad~ not bad, just that I noticed it!:(

I played with the wiring for a while thinking I could figure it out~ I could not!:(  I called Ijdmtoy and explained the phenomenon. The person/tech/help on the line said that it is the preference of whether I’d want high or low beam, not both! You could have heard my blood flow! So, you’re telling me my daughter won’t have a High beam or visa versa? I was sad:(

 

This is where the idea of saving money bit me in my cute little buttocks! If I had spent the money at www.Theretrofitsource.com, I wouldn’t have encountered so many pesky problems!

The Retrosource has a relay system which allows high beam and low beam to operate via the dimmer switch! They saved my sanity and my project! It was only 35 bucks! It is a direct hook up to what I already had, thank goodness!

http://www.theretrofitsource.com/all-products/morimoto-9007-9004-motocontrol-bi-xenon-wire-harness.html#.UuF-LbRMFhE

 

I’m not done! The Chrome insides still need to be installed and the clear outside lens. I forgot to mention how to separate the lens from the housing! How forgetful I’m getting! Preheat the oven for 270 degrees, put one unit in at a time for about 7 minutes, use gloves to remove, then start at a logical spot to start the separation process.  Actually I feel that 250 would have been hot enough. But what I found, once the part is in the preheated oven, turn the heat to 200 or so the heating element won’t come back on. That way it won’t melt parts~ I melted a couple of places, but wasn’t critical except to my ego!

Now putting it back together, I read where one would take some cardboard, soak it, put in the oven and put the part on it to protect the part. That was a bad idea! The heat caused the moisture to turn to steam and got into the headlight! Moisture in the headlight~ EEK.  I took my hair dryer and put the heat to it and the moisture disappeared shortly.

 

In the pic below, is a product window weld that may be put in the recess of the housing~ then kind of squeeze it back together carefully, then place it back in the oven as mentioned for about another 6-7 minutes, the continue squeezing around the housing until satisfied that it’s sealed. You won’t use the full thickness of the product, kind of pull it along and make it a little thinner as you lay it down.

 

I saw this product on TV called Flex seal clear. I bought a can of it at ACE hardware, then taped everything but the edge of the housing/lens.  I sprayed 2-3 coats, then before it was totally dried, I removed all my tape and paper. Now I’m pretty sure it’s totally sealed. If it gets moisture back in it, I’ll buy another set of headlights! 😉

 

At this point it’s just a matter of re-installing the plastic bumper cover~ then done deal!;)

 

I’m pleased with the outcome, but not very pleased in the manner in which it took to get all the parts necessary.  All the reading I did didn’t prepare me for actually doing this upgrade. Of course If I had it to do over again, I know better what to do and where to buy my next set of projectors.

I hope this has been helpful to some degree. It’s a great upgrade and I think all vehicles should have this light system, especially on the back roads where it’s dark and deer or small critters might run out front of a car! Let there be light! 😉  dne’