BHLM + DDM ultra HID

This was a fun project. Even though I was weary of permaseal, I've successfully done 5+ retrofit/bhlm jobs on other cars so I was confident. I'm not going to lie, it wasn't easy and it isn't for the faint of heart. Prying the lens away from the body and cleaning up the old permaseal was exhausting.

I baked at 295 deg for 15 per Meso's guidance. It took a few extra minutes baking between prying to get them apart. The plastic is on the brink of melting so you have to be really careful. After that, just the scrape and pull to fully clean out the channels.

My original intention was to just slightly darken the chrome turn and hi buckets with the duplicolor shadown chrome kit. I'm pretty good with a rattle can and I've never had good luck with any duplicolor products, this one being no different. It wouldn't lay down evenly and looked cloudy and streaked, so I proceeded to paint them gloss black. Never using duplicolor again.

Krylon satin black laid down super nice on rest of chrome and I hit the side markers with night shades. All it takes is a single pass. I masked the chrome bezel around the low projector, it was a very nice touch.

On reassembly, I added the DDM ultra 35w kit with 4500k bulbs and they match the drls perfectly. Light output is great, the projectors aren't the best, but they're fine. The black high beam buckets render them inoperable. The turns still look very bright.

 

Looks good

Should have done the RX350 projector that would have solved the new highbeam issue, they bolt right in.

Good part is I assume you used butyl to reseal so reopening would be easy if you ever decide to go that route.

 

Exactly! Now the mods can flow much easier

 

I was curious why he didn’t do that whole it was all open. Looks great!!

 

You have to choose your battles. I couldn't have the truck down a moment longer then it was. From here on out it's a piece of cake.

 

Looks really good.

 

Looks good man. Are you getting any bounce with that hid kit?

 

I did something very similar however I did not paint the high beam bucket. I did replace the stock projector lense with a Sti clear lense (same lense they use to upgrade the RX350 projectors), lenses dropped right in with minor tweaks the clarity of these is amazing. I have not gotten led/hid bulbs yet I just run a modified H9 bulb for now.

 

How much of a difference does that lens make compared to stock?

 

@Edgar

It’s a significant difference, the light output is clearer more crisp and that’s just using a modified H9 bulb, I don’t have any light output pictures. I’m thinking with a LED or HID kit they should perform pretty good however everyone says the stock projectors are not adequate for those types of bulbs but to each is own.

The prongs that hold the lenses on the stock assembly are not long enough to accommodate the lense spacers in order to “tune” them, however I had very sharp cut off lines without the spacers so it was a direct swap no tuning needed in my case.

 

None on the street. I did notice it a little on a washboard dirt road though. It wasn't terrible but I did notice it.