BlownV8

I decided to install the HID kit that I purchased over a year ago. I've been really impressed with the H7 PIAA Extreme White bulbs over the stock bulbs. After one of the bulbs went out, I decided it was finally time to make the kit work or at least see if I could make it fit.

What I did:

Remove the stock bulbs. Pull the metal retaining clip off the connector. The HID bulb necessitated modification of that clip. Trace the area around the base of the HID bulb onto the metal clip. Cut it out with a dremel and cut-off wheel attachment. Make sure not to bend this clip because it will make reinstallation difficult or cause the clip not to properly secure the bulb to the projector.

Slide bulb on to mounting clip. Keep to the side until it is ready for installation. Do not touch the bulb with bare hands or a dirty glove.

Take ballast assembly and apply some good double sided automotive grade tape to the back of the bulb. There is space at the bottom of the housing below the projector for this ultra slim ballast. Clean the bottom of the housing with some alcohol pads to remove any residue and to help with adhesion. Place the ballast as far into the housing as you can while keeping the ballast flat against the bottom of the housing. Insert ballast and press down to make sure it is adhered to the headlight housing.

Install the clip and HID bulb into the housing and turn clockwise to secure. Make sure both sides of the clip are secure to the projector housing. Plug the positive red wire from the HID kit to the yellow wire and black to brown on the original connector. Wrap the connector with electrical tape to keep the positive side from hitting any metal or other wires inside the headlamp housing. Neatly group the wires together with a zip tie and put all the wiring into the housing and put the back plate on the headlight housing.

You are all set. Make sure you get the harness that has the resistors wired in so you do not get the headlight warning message. I purchased my kit from http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/H10-H...Q5fAccessories And they prewired the resistor.

I have not fully tested the ballast in the housing or the headlight aiming since it is still light outside. I also need to make sure that the ballast does not produce too much heat inside the housing. This is a very low wattage system so I feel the heat should be minimal - possibly less than the stock halogen bulbs.

BlownV8

So far so good. No headlight warning message. The projector beam pattern is still nice and tight and not one person flashed me due to the increased light output or aim. The color is a bit whiter than the pictures make it look but that's probably due to the fact that I was using a cheap digital camera. The bulbs are 6000K and the light output is phenominal. Here are a few more pics.

lwain56

Nice job and pics, thanks for sharing with the forum.

BlownV8

Thanks! The stock H7's in the GL are horrible. Anything to make the light output better from the H7 housing is worth the time and effort. This one was very easy, relatively cheap, and worth the effort. It would not be a problem if you ever wanted to go back to stock but I know I won't.

Venom-AMG

From the pictures it doesn't look like 6000k more of 9000k

daragez

that's a great job!.....nice pics...! thanks...

BlownV8

Yes, in the pictures, they do look like 9000K but they are 6000K. I addressed the color issue in my post with the night time pictures. It's because the camera isn't very good. They are white with a hint of blue.

BlownV8

Thanks! This really was a very easy project. It was one step higher than changing the bulb. I've got to get the chrome foglights covers and the oval foglights to complete the look.

BlownV8

All is well with the kit. After a long drive, I opened the headlight and felt the housing and the ballast and there seems to be no additional heat from the ballast being in the headlight housing.

The color of the HID bulbs is great. It really gives a highend look for my $70,000, when new, GL450. I can't understand why these cars come equipped with H7 bulbs at the GL's price point.

The key to this particluar kit is that the bulb base is metal. Most of the kits I've seen have a plastic base on the H7 retrofit bulb and that plastic base is thicker than the metal base in the H7 bulb. The way the clip works is that it has to be snug against the metal bulb base for it to lock-in to the housing. A thick plastic base makes it virtually impossible, unless you modify and make that plastic base thinner, to use the stock bulb retaining clips.

I really love the light from this kit. It is a big leap from the PIAA's and a giant leap from the stock H7's.

trumaine03

What brand HID kit did you use?

AsianML

I'm curious to see how horrible the halogens are after reading countless posts from various members about the poor output of the H7s. Anybody have any pics of the output?

BlownV8

You will think that they don't have their lights on if they showed a pic.

BlownV8

There is a link in my first post.

redroc14

Sorry this post is long, but hopefully adds some value. I followed the steps that BlownV8 posted above and did the same installation. I had originally replaced the stock halogen bulbs with PIAAs which were better, but I still wasn't satisfied. Now I have the HIDs on the low beams and moved the PIAAs to the high beams. The difference from stock is night and day. Sorry I couldn't resist. I ordered the kit from http://www.retro-solutions.com/ . When I popped the hood my biggest problem was figuring out where to put the ballasts. I also really did not want to drill through the housing covers to run the wiring, but it looked like I had no choice until I read the install done by BlownV8. I took some pictures along the way and posted them in this reply and the next one in an effort to supplement the excellent ones above, specifically in the areas that had me a little nervous initially when looking at how to do the install.

I'll walk through the steps but first I really want to thank BlownV8 for not only posting the step by step above, but for taking the time to answer a bunch of my questions. I'm very appreciative, and I owe you a couple of beers!

It took me about 1.5 hours from start to finish and no special tools other than a file. I actually scoped the project out one night beforehand looking at the plugs, fitting the ballast in the housing, etc so that helped. I did the drivers side first since I knew it was harder and figured once I got that done it would be downhill. Because of that you’ll see that the first picture already has the driver’s side in, also it’s easier to take clearer pictures on the passenger side install.

Picture #1 is during the day after I installed the driver's side with the passenger side still running the PIAAs.

Picture #2 is of the stock retaining clip after it is removed form the plug. As BlownV8 mentioned above, you need this to install the bulb back in the socket so you need to pay attention to it. Also as BlownV8 mentions HID bulbs with a metal base will fit with the clip whereas as thicker plastic ones won't. The kit I have has metal bases on the bulbs. One key point here that I learned is the clip does not hold the bulb itself. You can just pull the bulb out of the plug to remove it. Lesson number one for me.

Picture #3 is of the new HID bulb. It has pigtails for connection later to the ballast. It also has a rubber grommet around the wires. If you choose to drill through the housing cover, the grommet will pop in and provide a seal.

Picture #4 is of the HID bulb wiring running through the stock clip. Given the shape of the base of the new bulbs I didn't have to do very much modification to the clip. I actually only filed the long sides of the opening in the middle of the clip very, very slightly to pass the male/female pigtail wiring through. If you look at the clip, you'll see it looks identical to how it was before I started.

Picture #5 -bulb ready for installation. You'll see the rubber grommet removed (at top) and the retaining clip pushed all of the way up to the base of the bulb. This will be able to go back into the housing with no problems.

Picture #6 - Close-up of the retaining clip on the base of the bulb, it is snug and sits closely on the base of the bulb.

The rest of the pictures in the next post.

redroc14

Picture # 7 is the start of the install under the hood. The bulb is already installed in the housing using the stock clip and the OEM socket is on the upper left (yellow & brown wires) with the bulb and retaining clip removed. The pigtail wires to the lower left (blue & red wires) are from the HID bulb.

Picture #8 is what goes under the hood next – the ballast is on the upper left with pigtail wires that connect to the HID bulb pigtails. On the right is the square red/black plug that will plug into the OEM socket in the previous picture with a capacitor attached (blue), and the oval plug that goes into the ballast. I actually colored half of the red plug black with permanent marker where the black wire runs through. I did it so I could identify clearly under the hood to line it up on the side of the OEM socket with the brown wire (the ground wire),

Picture #9 here is the second thing I learned – when pushing the black and red wires with the male connectors through the red plastic plug, each of the male connectors that come through have tabs on the lower parts. I regret not taking a picture beforehand, but tried to point out where they would be. They need to be on the inside part of the plug, facing each other. You may need to pry them out a bit so when you push each of the male connectors through the red plastic plug, they sort of click in place and hold the male ends in place. Here’s why it’s a lesson learned, when I did the driver’s side and finished the bulb didn’t light. Turns out that when I pushed the above plug into the OEM socket, the male connectors kept sliding back without me realizing it and were not making a connection.

Picture #10 connections made under the hood to the OEM socket and the new plug going to the ballast; connection made with the HID pigtail to the pigtail from the ballast

Picture #11 same as picture above but here you can see the complete connections to the ballast before the go into the housing. You can see the connections from above to the left resting on top of the wheelwell.

Picture #12 both HIDs installed and lit with no error codes and working fine with the headlights set to Auto.

Once again I want to thank BlownV8 for all of his help. I would also recommend http://www.retro-solutions.com/ for the kit. I have no connection to them but read some very positive feedback about them and ordered on the basis of that. I emailed them a few times both before and after my order and all I can say is that Todd from retro-solutions was extremely helpful and courteous. Sorry for the very long two posts but if this augments BlownV8’s tutorial and helps someone else, I’d like to think I gave a little back in return for all of his help.

ddcha

I just installed my aftermarket kit from www.xenithxenons.com
I am very happy with it. I got the 6000k H7 kit. George, who owns the business, was a great pleasure to deal with.

I was a little intimidated by the installation because my bulbs had the plastic bases, but I made it work with some improv. I reused the OEM metal clips as outlined in the very helpful DIY instructions above. I had to slightly bend some of the metal parts of the metal clips to get it to fit in the socket properly. Once I got one side on, the other was a breeze. Overall, the longest and painful part of installation was the filing. I didn't have a real metal file so I used my wife's metal nail file . No error codes, all the wires and the small ballasts fit inside of the headlight housing. No drilling, no splicing, nothing. It was great. I will take some shots later, but I highly recommend xenithxenons, which I came across after I saw a writeup elsewhere.

special thanks to blownv8 and redroc14 for the effort they took to post this step by step.

BlownV8

You are very welcome!

rayleiwu

Hey guys, what are you gonna do with the yellowish little bulbs and the high beams? Does the factory HID also have the mixed colors?
I just did the same conversion and am wondering about replacing the little bulbs(what are they? BTW) w/ LED's...

axchung

I tried LEDs but you get an bulb out message. You could bypass by adding a resistor to the LED but to me not worth the trouble. I just changed those bulbs and the side markers with hyperwhites, which are much better than the yellow stock ones.

LEOSOPHIE

Also change the fogs to complete the look.

rayleiwu

Have you thought/tried these ones?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/White...Q5fAccessories

axchung

The fogs i changed the same day i took delivery. Chose Polarg H11 they are japanese bulbs, good color and excellent quality, i put them on 10/08 and they are still good. I thought about putting HID on the fogs( i did that on my Range Rover) but decided not to because i leave all my lights on all the time.

rayleiwu

Thanks ax! Will get H11 for the fogs and LED(just give a try) for the parking.

StevethePilot

Which location(s) would these be used? They're pretty sharp.

STP

rayleiwu

To replace the yellowish parking light bulbs