ghaffar23

...am a little saddened by the quality. It seems as though the projectors will shake or vibrate when I go over bumps. I am also a little nervous about the projector bezel falling off as well, even though I silicon-glued them to the projectors. Is there a way to properly seal these things, without buying the BMW rubber covers? And when fitting the ballast to the bottom, how can I seal those properly? I have a pair of Matsu****a ballasts. I just don't want to put everything together and put it in my car, just to have to take it apart again. Is there anything that I can do to make them more solid?

JerryCurl

On the bezel and on my E55 projectors - I carefully heated the plastic prongs and bent them inward with a butterknife, then hit it with cold water to set it. There is a fine, and I mean close threshold where the plastic gets hot enough to bend, and/or collapse. Go slow with pateince and it will work. The bezel fits very snug againts my projectos and 6 months later, has taken some hard bumps but remained firmly in place. If you are nervous about them falling off TRUST ME - they will. Take care of it now, while the lights are out.

Just throw a sandwhich box over the ballasts, they are tucked up under there pretty good.

raymond g-

with the bezel, i used Permatx high temp gasket/silicone (orange colored goop)
on half dozen of the prongs. has held up wonderfully for a year...even though
I had to take proj out one time for fine-tuning.

i've done 5 retrofits using E55 projectors and none have wiggled (have an RS6
mod on the to-do list). how exactly did you mount the projector to the posts?
if you have any pics during assembly, that might help give us an idea.

the vibration induces shaking could come from poor headlight housing mount-to
-subframe, from poor projector-to-headlight mount, from unsecured cutoff, etc
so one needs to isolate the cause of this first.

congratulations on the near completion of your project. just a little tweaking
and i'm sure it'll be fine. how do you feel about the beam quality, cutoff, color
etc?

ghaffar23

I had to fabricate one of the brackets, since I messed up one of them. The metal is kind of flimsy, even though it is 20 gauge. Also, I noticed that two of the four mounting screws weren't tightening, so I put some silicon in the holes to secure them. Upon closer inspection, it's like the entire headlight assembly, you know, where the adjusting takes place, is what's loose. The projectors are pretty secure. I haven't gotten a chance to hook them up yet, as I do not have a power supply. However, I do have an RV 12V converter. Will this work? If so, I will post pics!

raymond g-

i'm not sure what an RV converter is but i've tested installation by using either
a healthy motorcycle battery, car battery, or one of those portable power
packs which has jumper cables on them....like you find at Walmart, auto parts
store, etc.

ghaffar23

Before I move on any further, I would like to thank ZAM and raymond for the little tidbits to help me through my retro-fit process. I've been waiting around for the ballasts for like two months, and I finally got time to test the projector quality...WOW ! Light output is amazing, even though I have the Philips 5000K bulbs (85122+). It's has more like a greenish-blue tint to it. I want them in my car right now, but I have a couple questions that I know either raymond, ZAM, or anyone else could answer.

First, I still have a bit of movement in the projector, you know, where the bracket and the projector screw into the assembly. It's loose and when I press down slightly on the back of the bulb, it moves. I'd imagine, as I have tested, if I were to hit some bumps on the road, the lights would vibrate. I really would not like that. I will soon fix the projector bezel, as well, but I want to figure out why the rattling is occuring. It seems like the whole assembly is loose, like, even if I were to put high-temp epoxy on the bracket, it'd still jiggle.

Second, when I mount the ballast to the bottom of the headlight, how do I go about running the wires to the ballast? For example, on the back of the bulb, there's the connector...would I drill a hole to fit this, or what? Do either of you two have well-known techniques for this, or any pictures for that matter as to the way you went around this?

I am so close to finishing this project...and I am so excited! I live where there's ALOT of darkness, and this would be the best $600 spent on my car. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated, as always.

zam2000

Graffar

Congrat on the job. First of all, the 85122+ is the best out there. They're actually 4300-4400K, just that they're even brighter (10%) than regular 85122 xenon bulb

I don't have access to a light right now to post pix for you, since some of your issue will be easier to explain w/ picture. However, until you have the projector tightly secured & stable, don't close & seal the headlight. Some of the fix & vibration, even just a little now, will escalate, since the whole headlight have to take lot of vibration when you drive, so you want everything secure right now. (not to mention it's PITA to remove the bumper cover to take out the light, once you have put everything in). So while the light is out, try to make it as good & rigid as possible.

For vibration, couple reasons

1. If it's caused by the projector lose to housing, easy fix, tight the screw. To mount the RS6 to the Depo housing, you actually have to cut inside of the housing a bit (enlarge the big ring where the projector go through). Use dremel at high speed, since the material of the inside housing is a bit fragile. If you don't enlarge the ring, you might have problem for the projector to sit nicely inside the housing, and eventually will get lose when you drive & headlight vibrate.

More likely it's the whole projector housing is vibrating or getting lose:

2. If the vibration is caused by the mounting of the projector housing to the headlight case getting lose (either at the axle on the side, where you adjust left & right), or the one inside (where you adjust up/down), the quick & dirty way is to mount a high load spring at the bottom of the projector housing to the headlight case. This will damping the vibration, but make it hard to adjust. To do it the correct way, look to see where is the losing point. If it's the inside axle, usethe snap ring to tighten where the housing meet the ball join. If it's the axle to the side (inlikely), then put in a piece of thin metal where the part that move in and out (from the projector housing) glide on the the headlight housing. Be careful when you fix the vibration, since you don't want to crack the projector housing or axle.

3. To mount the ballast at the bottom of the light, cut a small hole on the bottom of the headlight housing. The ignitor & wire from the panasonic ballast could be remove (press on the tab at the bottom of them), and the plug is quite small, so don't cut the hole too large. Once you run all the wire through, seal them up.

4. With the 2000-on, once you put on the ignitor to the bulb, the back won't fit in. Just cut a large hole on the cover, when go to HomeDepo, buy one of the small pot (very small) and glue or screw it to the back cover. It will look nicely. You can ask one of the member here who have 2000-later headlight done by me to post pix of this, since it's kind of hard to described, but once done, make the headlight look really nice.

Alexbenz

listen to huy, he knows what he;s talking about.......

i did my tsx retro with huy and raymond's help and had no problems what so ever before i sold my car..... the best part was driving at night!!!!

ghaffar23

So...does anyone have any pictures that they'd be willing to share? I am so excited, and I want to get it done right. I have ZAM's tips, and now, I'm looking for pictorials

ghaffar23

I wanted to show exactly where the vibrating is at so that maybe ZAM could elaborate more. Put a high-load spring or metal piece where? This is the only thing holding up my project, and it is so frustrating...please advise.

raymond g-

i haven't looked inside the headlight in a year so am going from memory. in
the 1st pic, both highlighted connections are part of the H/V adjustments
so you really need to be sure not to over engineer the 'fix' so as to lose
your adjustment controls. seem to see a circlip of sorts in the photo beneath
the "can these come apart..." latching mechanism. can you confirm?

2nd pic...the perspective is a little lost on me unless i open a headlight and
refresh my memory

3rd pic....this appears to be the back side of 1st pic's adj in the middle of
the headlight

not much help to you unless i have one open in front of me again but am not
planning another mod until Summer. hopefully Zam or another who has done
this mod can jump in. hang in there. you've done all the hard work and it's
about to be ready to button up as soon as these final tweaks are resolved.

fyi - i never had to remove that huge inner chromed reflective unti out during
any of the mods. i left in place while it was baking. i hope this isn't an in-
stance where temperature was too high and weakened something.....or that
something in that adjustment linkage(s) was damaged during the retrofit.

i still have OEM housings stored away. if i get a chance and can open it up,
i'll try to extrapolate something which might help in your autopsy.

JerryCurl

Hmm, year 00 Depos...

Have you tried putting the lens back on, then seeing if it rattles? I think the lens and brackets on the lens seats the chrome housing snug once you put the lens on, that might take the rattle away.

When you first described it, I was under the impression you were getting a rattle where the projector is screwed onto the Depo/chrome housing, which leads to another question - I see you said you set the screws with silicon - have you "leveled" your projectors by mounting them onto the car sans the lenses, and setting the beam pattern level against a wall?

Everything you pointed out is for up/down/tilt adjustments, I think.

Scrape out some of the glue and snap a lens back on to see if it snugs them up.

BTW, I didn't need or use any external power source...I got the projector mounted somehwat tight to the housing; hooked them to the power harness; mounted to the car; adjusted the beam levelness; disconnected everything; then secured the projectors to the Depo housing and set the screws with silicon. Then re-assembled everything and mounted again (actually, a few times )

ghaffar23

This small pot...what does it look like and can I get it at Lowe's? Also, with raymond's fix for the projector bezel, that high temperature epoxy can be found at Lowe's as well? I don't have a Home Depo around here.

raymond g-

the high tension lead which connects to the bulb/ballast....what I did was
to simply relieve the housing with a Dremel so that the hole was large enough
for the lead to pass through....but then squished by the back lid when closed.
In addition, the same hole was made a little bigger to accommodate a rubber
grommet which i picked up at the hardware store. The inner diam had to be
large enough to allow the high tension lead to pass through....as well as the
smaller solenoid wiring, I think (am at work and unable to look at this right now).
Make the hole small....and then test so that the back lid will clamp shut with
minimal space inside the grommet (with wires). Too large and moisture might
enter.

the hitemp is, as I recall typing, Permatex hitemp RTV silicone. chances are
high that you dont even need high temp, but it was so easy to find at the
local auto parts store so I got it. cost was same a regular temp. just dab
on the bezel fingers (about 8 of them, equidistant) and press to fit. it will
stay on....yet can remove if needed.

Fares

I made some search on ebay for HID CONVERSION KIT Bi-Xenon. I noticed that the lens are not included in the package. Do they really need lens or not since I have seen some cars with lens which looks great as the one in this post. I consider myself a beginer in this regard so if you can instruct me for more good readings.

Thanks all.

raymond g-

are you referring to the round glass projector lens.....or the large exterior
plastic lens on the outer headlight shell ?

Fares

I mean the one that is visible from outside of the car.