My quest to go from Halogen headlights to bi-Xenon was a bit of a struggle to be honest but think I have finally got there.
Looking through the forums here and on every other forum seemed to through up so many differing options. So the issue at first was the headlights the car came with had clearly been hacked around with , obvious by some of the photos I will shortly post up.
First problems were in no particular order. Fried egg look, one broken side light that flickered ( more on that later), differing colours between all the lights from yellow to bright white and indicators were constantly on when in position 2.
So took the bumper off and removed the lights to investigate. Found that the main beam headlights were in fact some odd Xenon anyway with ballasts which had been cabled tied in place. One was brighter than the other. Then discovered why the side light was flickering. They say never fit a ballast or inline resistor inside the headlight because they get hot ? Yes they are correct
You can see where the heat has actually melted holes in the housing and literally sank into the shape of the resistor !!
Amazed that it even worked.
So bought a replacement set of standard Halogen headlights off ebay that had better condition lenses and in my workshop took them apart. Removed the entire assembly and the orange lens. Then bought a retrofit set of bi-xenon housing and bulbs from an outfit in holland who were great to deal with and very helpful. Kit came with everything I needed to retrofit the main beam. Bit of a mission to fit but I knew I could happily hack away at these lights without being under a time constraint of doing it on my actual headlights. Fitted brighter H7 bulbs and side light bulbs in and silvatec indicator bulbs.
Spray painted the chrome sections at the bottom satin black and assembled it all back together. oh and also did some coding via OBD eleven to stop my car thinking it was from the US ( hence why the indicator bulbs were permanently on )
Finally installed back in the car with new ballasts correctly mounted on both sides and all cabling neatly tucked away. No cable ties in place
Took it for a drive down the road and could see that they were way too low. Even auto adjusting them via the switch in the car didnt bring them up far enough. So popped down to a local garage at night that has a nice dark shutter when closed. Parked up and using the manual adjustment screws, levelled them up to the correct height ( so they pass an MOT ) and drove home using the old technique. If cars flash you then they are too high, if you dont get flashed then its all good
Typical just as I finish I see a post on here where some chap is selling headlights with the harness etc..ha ha had to laugh, that would have been far easier.
Anyway finally happy and onto the next item on the list.
Looking through the forums here and on every other forum seemed to through up so many differing options. So the issue at first was the headlights the car came with had clearly been hacked around with , obvious by some of the photos I will shortly post up.
First problems were in no particular order. Fried egg look, one broken side light that flickered ( more on that later), differing colours between all the lights from yellow to bright white and indicators were constantly on when in position 2.
So took the bumper off and removed the lights to investigate. Found that the main beam headlights were in fact some odd Xenon anyway with ballasts which had been cabled tied in place. One was brighter than the other. Then discovered why the side light was flickering. They say never fit a ballast or inline resistor inside the headlight because they get hot ? Yes they are correct
You can see where the heat has actually melted holes in the housing and literally sank into the shape of the resistor !!
Amazed that it even worked.
So bought a replacement set of standard Halogen headlights off ebay that had better condition lenses and in my workshop took them apart. Removed the entire assembly and the orange lens. Then bought a retrofit set of bi-xenon housing and bulbs from an outfit in holland who were great to deal with and very helpful. Kit came with everything I needed to retrofit the main beam. Bit of a mission to fit but I knew I could happily hack away at these lights without being under a time constraint of doing it on my actual headlights. Fitted brighter H7 bulbs and side light bulbs in and silvatec indicator bulbs.
Spray painted the chrome sections at the bottom satin black and assembled it all back together. oh and also did some coding via OBD eleven to stop my car thinking it was from the US ( hence why the indicator bulbs were permanently on )
Finally installed back in the car with new ballasts correctly mounted on both sides and all cabling neatly tucked away. No cable ties in place
Took it for a drive down the road and could see that they were way too low. Even auto adjusting them via the switch in the car didnt bring them up far enough. So popped down to a local garage at night that has a nice dark shutter when closed. Parked up and using the manual adjustment screws, levelled them up to the correct height ( so they pass an MOT ) and drove home using the old technique. If cars flash you then they are too high, if you dont get flashed then its all good
Typical just as I finish I see a post on here where some chap is selling headlights with the harness etc..ha ha had to laugh, that would have been far easier.
Anyway finally happy and onto the next item on the list.
