[oldmaninsaline]

Instructions are in third post in thread

I suppose most everyone has seen my 1 wire snake eye mod. The instructions are on the site somewhere - I did not come up with it. It's just putting a jumper between two relays in the passenger side relay box. Easy peasy. I use these for my daytime running lights. Put on the parking lights, buckets stay down, headlights and driving lights come on.

I'm kinda bored with the halogens so I ordered a set of h4666 LED projector lights. I got these specific ones because of the ring DRL and the low beam projection pattern which works great for the snake eyes. This can also be set up as blinkers - probably not too hard to do with some relays but I don't really want that.

And so the saga began. I mean how hard can it be to replace a headlight? I started at 8 am and got the first one done at 12 pm. 🤣 Oh, it's been a laugh a minute around here. And then my 85 year old mother called wanting to play 50 questions and have an in depth conversation (in a panic of course) about a chair that broke, which let me tell you is a great mood "enhancer."

I'm starting on the second one and will have step by step 8 x 10 color glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on back about each one. We're calling it the Stealth LED Maxacree.

In this photo the LED is on the right. It looks a lot different in person - the camera is correcting for the ultra bright eye blinding, paint peeling light from it.

This is what the lamp looks like in it's off state.

 

[FluffyCow]

I'd love to see the end results of this, including what lenses/lights you bought(with link, probably Amazon LOL), and a night shot of how well they throw light. I've got HIDs in pretend-projectors in my car. Looks AWESOME, throws light about as well as a pair of candles.

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[oldmaninsaline]

Well, I'm currently a 7 finger typer. Turns out those metal bezels that actually hold the lights in? If you hit them just right, they'll slice your finger. To the bone. No worries, I am a trained first aid specialist. I'm that guy everyone asks for help puttin' their digits back on. Friday I'll be heading to the urgent care for das stitches - and a cool new scar!

Aftermath of the "incident."

These are the LED headlights I used:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089K4FWZK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So, here are your instructions. you will need:

soldering iron (30-40 watt)
silver solder (rosin core)
Heat shrink tubing (medium and small)
bayonet connectors (to connect the lights to the stock wiring)
black and red wire, 10 gauge
electrical tape
either a file or sandpaper
band-aids

You can get pre-made adaptors for this if you can find them. I have always found that soldering as many joints as possible nets the longest lasting results.

Honestly, with LED headlights you probably won't need 10 gauge wire - 12 will work just as well, but I am captain overkill.

NOTE: If you twist the low beam connector on the headlight so it matches up with the angled connector on the car and if you snip off the high beam connector on the HEADLIGHT, you can manage to smash fit the headlights into the stock connectors. I tried that first, didn't like how I had to jam them together and made my own adaptor.

NOTE: You will lose your high beams if you use the same lights I used. The stock wiring with it's ground/ground/hot/ground/hot/ground/ground wiring nonsense drove me nuts doing this. Myself, I don't care about high beams. For me they're useless on a single bulb system because when the low beam is adjusted, the high sucks so screw it, I don't need no damn high beams.

NOTE: Be sure to use bayonet connectors that fit correctly in the stock connector (the one that fits onto the headlight). Protip: buy a package of bayonets that have different sizes. I make my own so I don't know the correct width in mm.

Here is the end result - I'm dragging out my old methods. I don't particularly like the popups so what I did back in the day (an old person saying) is disconnect the electrical socket on the buckets and manually raise the buckets 2 inches. It's more aero friendly and works as well in my opinion. And you can leave it like that all the time.

Here is the finished product with the 2 inch raised up deal. The DRL ring around the LED lights looks pretty good peeking up like this. I think.

Right click photo, view image, click again for full size.

I highly recommend using either a 12 volt battery manual (not automatic) charger or a 12 volt battery to test light the LED bulb after each major step. Remember, black is ground or the (-) on the battery.

Here are the directions. Look up on YouTube what you need to learn - wire stripping, tinning wire, using a soldering iron, using heat shrink tubing. Or find a friend and sucker them into helping.

NOTE: I have over 50 years experience doing this type of work. The first side took 4 hours to complete (tracing wires, looking up diagrams, testing voltages and grounds). Don't expect this to take 10 minutes if you've never done this type of work.

NOTE: Identify which connector on the LED headlight is ground, low and high beams. Use your power supply/battery/charger to test light the headlight, mark each one with a marker. SUPER PROTIP NOTE: Most headlight details/images at whatever website you look at them at will have the connectors labeled in a photo.

SUPER PROTIP NOTE: MAKE SURE THE CAR ISN'T SET TO HIGH BEAMS. Not that that happened to me or anything.

1. cut and trim a 3 inch length of both 10 gauge red and black wire.
2. strip of 1/4 inch of wire of both colors, tin each end.

3. take a bayonet connector and solder it to one end of each wire
4. put small shrink tubing around the end of the bayonet connector where it's soldered, apply heat, shrink it.

5. use the file or sandpaper to scuff the low beam and ground connector from the headlight.
6. tin those connectors, both the ground and the low beam.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= OPTIONAL -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

IF YOU WANT TO USE THE DRL RING, ADD THESE STEPS:
1A. cut connector from thin RED wire
2A. strip 1/8 inch of insulation from the red thin wire
3A. Solder a 3 inch piece of wire to the thin red wire (I used speaker wire for this)
4A. tin the end of the red thin wire
5A. use small shrink tube on the soldered connection.

7. put the larger shink tube on both the black and red wires BEFORE the next step
8. Now solder the red wire onto the low beam connector, solder the black wire on the ground connector.

9. slip the larger shrink tube so it totally covers the connector and wire solder connection.
10. Shrink the tube

The headlight is now ready to connect to the car.

SUPER IMPORTANT: Of course the metal bezel that holds the headlight in will need to be "convinced" to go on properly. I was not able to get all 4 screws to go back in, but the 3 that are there are holding that thing TIGHT.

PROTIP: Leave the two bottom screws connected to the bezel by a couple of threads and then bend the bezel to get the headlights in and out. The screws are stainless steel and are not magnetic so they'll drop all over the place unless you have fingers like spagetti and can hold them in the hole while you twist around like a pretzel
trying to screw them before they fall out. Again and again and again.

 

[oldmaninsaline]

These are really nice and bright LEDs - It took me several months to narrow down my choice. Believe me, there are a lot of choices out there.

My primary goal was to have:

A. Up and down and centered low beam MULTIPLE projectors
B. DRL ring around the entire headlight

 

[OhioSpyderman]

Those trim rings could be sold on Ebay as onion slicers...
The whole headlight design was part of a Rubik's catastrophe...

I initially went HID, and then just before I sold my 92TT, I swapped out for LED.
I NEVER raised my lights, like you I did the bypass and my fogs and lights came on at the same time.
The HID's and LED's were plenty bright to go through the snakes...

I like where you're headed (but not with the blood)...

Bob.

 

[oldmaninsaline]

Those trim rings could be sold on Ebay as onion slicers...
The whole headlight design was part of a Rubik's catastrophe...

Bob.

And I cut myself on the very last step before tightening up the screws.

OMG Bob! how many screws, covers, rings and whatnot does a headlight need? I can picture the designers muttering about getting back at round eyes real good this time. South Park could do an episode on that alone.

BTW, if you throw a meter on there to check which connector is which without the car running, expect less than 11 volts. Don't panic, perfectly normal.

 

[striker3]

I'm curious what the light output and beam pattern is like? I went through the hassle of custom building a set of bi-xenon projectors (using Morimito mini-H1 projectors). While I love them and wont be changing, its hard to recommend doing it because its so much work and such a tight fit. As such, I'm always looking out for an alternative that maybe comes close to the output and pattern while being much simpler to install.

 

[oldmaninsaline]

Don't know about simpler but I'll take it out tonight and check the pattern.

 

[ThatOneVr4]

Well, I'm currently a 7 finger typer. Turns out those metal bezels that actually hold the lights in? If you hit them just right, they'll slice your finger. To the bone. No worries, I am a trained first aid specialist. I'm that guy everyone asks for help puttin' their digits back on. Friday I'll be heading to the urgent care for das stitches - and a cool new scar!

Aftermath of the "incident."

LMAO, Those metal bezels are a real pain in the ass! Your 100% correct they will slice you to the bone. I was using a bench grinder with a wire wheel attachment. I grinded the inside the metal at my work place once night. Like a dumbass I wasn't wearing gloves when I was holding it. The grinder spun it around my hand. Next thing I know I'm looking at blood dripping so fast! It sliced my index and pinky halfway to the bone. Grabbed the water hose but when I was washing my hand all I was seeing was blood. Had to call my boss to drive me to the ER, had to get 12 stitches in total. My pinky finger is still numbish.

Damn that photo you posted brings back some good memories! I'm never going to work without gloves again!

 

[striker3]

Don't know about simpler but I'll take it out tonight and check the pattern.

Considering I had to bake open lenses and do a lot of cutting, mounting, sealing just to get the projectors into the housing, and then still deal with making the whole thing (which was not significantly longer than a standard 4x6 housing) fit into the pop-up assembly, I would say something like this is significantly simpler.

 

[oldmaninsaline]

Considering I had to bake open lenses and do a lot of cutting, mounting, sealing just to get the projectors into the housing, and then still deal with making the whole thing (which was not significantly longer than a standard 4x6 housing) fit into the pop-up assembly, I would say something like this is significantly simpler.

I suppose you're right, that does sound a little more in depth. When I was coming up with the method of doing it, it seemed a lot more involved before I wrote everything out. Of course R&D accounts for a lot of time.

You know, that reminds me. Did you do a video about it? I seem to remember a video where someone made projectors.

 

[tom93vr4]

........xplainin what each one was to be used as evidence against us.

But seriously, that looks pretty darn good.

 

[oldmaninsaline]

........xplainin what each one was to be used as evidence against us.

But seriously, that looks pretty darn good.

FINALLY someone who got it.

It took me sooooo long to compare different lights and designs - over a year actually. I chose these because of the halo ring (and the ability to use them as parking/turn signal/DRL and the center triple low beam layout. The LED chips are at the top of the three projectors so the intensity of them shows through the snake eyes.

The end goal was to:
A. not have to raise the buckets.
B. versatility

Having the neat ring of LED driving lights that I can just have peeking over the snake eyes is exactly the effect I was looking for. Having the buckets raised just a little bit is that trick I learned back in 1996 when I had my first first gen.

For aero purposes, I could also add a clear cover to streamline the assembly - I've got a ton of 1/4 inch thick clear plastic that I used to make air dams from. You could bond a thinner slotted metal tab and use the front two upper screws to hold it in place and have the front of it tucked into the snake eyes. Looks like a new target coming into range right now!

I have in my later years become rather patient when it comes to purchases. My last set of truck tires took 6 months of back and forth dithering (actually it's an intense form of research) that was called "The Great and Epic Tire Search of 2018."

 

[oldmaninsaline]

Okay kids, here's the pattern photos. I have not taken photos with the buckets up by the 2 inches.

Snake eyes/driving lights

LEDs are bright enough with the buckets down that they cast a shadow across the street.

Buckets down, snake eyes / driving lights

Buckets up. I love this pattern! Nice to the sides and a good flood effect.

 

[oldmaninsaline]

An update on the injury - still bleeding, using otc stitches to hold it shut. As soon as I take the stitches off, the sides of the skin pull apart still. Most of the difficulty is age related.

Lesson: wear gloves, be careful. As you lose patience towards the end of a frustrating project, take a break.

And bite the bullet and spend the money on a good first aid kit, one that can treat up to major injuries.

 

[oldmaninsaline]

Tried to put the rest of the trim back on the bucket but the cut is nowhere near healed enough so the skin tore apart again. For those younger than 40, as you age, healing slows down, injuries take longer to heal - it's one of the causes of premature death. It has to do with the shortening of telomeres as we age where as our cells divide, there is a slight shortening of the telomeres in the cell structure. Welcome old age, "enjoy" your stay.

 

[_JB_]

Okay kids, here's the pattern photos. I have not taken photos with the buckets up by the 2 inches.

Snake eyes/driving lights



LEDs are bright enough with the buckets down that they cast a shadow across the street.



Buckets down, snake eyes / driving lights



Buckets up. I love this pattern! Nice to the sides and a good flood effect.

What do the beam patterns look against a flat wall, about 20' back?

 

[OhioSpyderman]

What do the beam patterns look against a flat wall, about 20' back?

THAT is a great question.
Max, your photos of the lights with the pop-ups down and fog lights were a bit misleading, IMO.
I can say that because I ran that way with both HID's and LED's and without the fogs, the lights were not THAT bright.

Along with what JB asked for, how about that same street shot with the pop-ups down and the fogs off (you can remove fuse #4 in the under hood box)...

Go get that wound REALLY stitched....

Bob.

 

[oldmaninsaline]

THAT is a great question.
Max, your photos of the lights with the pop-ups down and fog lights were a bit misleading, IMO.
I can say that because I ran that way with both HID's and LED's and without the fogs, the lights were not THAT bright.

Along with what JB asked for, how about that same street shot with the pop-ups down and the fogs off (you can remove fuse #4 in the under hood box)...

Go get that wound REALLY stitched....

Bob.

I'll see if I can get out tomorrow morning and do yer wall test against wall. In the meantime here's 7 feet away inside the garage. This is with the buckets up, not the 1 inch raised I am running now.

 

[FluffyCow]

I think I'll be getting me a pair of those lights. Beam pattern looks excellent. I won't be running them snake-eyes style as I have the JDM snake eyes with the back silvered because of the amber LED inside it, but I digress. They look exactly like what I want. Good looks, and actual light output.

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