3rd Gen BHLM + Retrofit Projector

awesome thanks man! And thx @20tacoma17 for the reminder - sometimes forget how big this thread is!

is there any trick to painting that small shield? I’ve read about a few people doing them and heard mention of needing to sand along the top so the paint doesn’t effect the sharpness of the cut off, or taping off the top before painting

 

Im still following this because I want to do a retrofit projector kit in mine with dual projectors. not sure if it came up but does anyone make/sell the bracket do do that yet? I know @MESO has done it on some headlights but not sure if it has ever been a for sale item.

 

Friendship with Oven ended... Heat gun is my new best friend.

I finally sat down today to dig the sealant out of my 2nd headlight's channel, and holy hell the difference was night and day. When I cleaned out the first one months ago using the oven approach (testing different temps & times), the stuff came out in shreds at best, and made a mess. Running a heat gun over the channel a few inches at a time, though? I was done in the span of 30 minutes, with no real change in my picking/scraping/pulling technique. Do yourself a favor!

 

nice! I’ll be sure mine is handy. Think I’m gonna go for it next weekend. Did you just use flathead screwdrivers for the scraping?

 

Ordered all my parts today. So pumped to finally have usable head lights.

 

Anyone have problems with the cutoff not being straight? My cutoff seems to be rotated a little bit, and it's on both projector. I dont see how I can rotate the projector. Any help would be appreciated.

I have rx350 projectors

 

A pic would help if possible. As far as I know projectors in the OEM location can only go in one way.

 

That shouldn’t be a problem. They only adjust up and down. Only thing I could think of is maybe the mounting location is off

 

Correct, they were direct bolt on. I have the lights apart right now in busted housing from my accident. I'll try to get them into the new housing and get some pictures. I took them apart to paint for the demon eye and might not have them reassembled correctly.

 

Are you checking with them outta the truck or when installed?

 

I had them installed. I was dumb and didnt check the alignment before I sealed them up. Figured they were drop in so no rotation alignment needed. I rolled with the cutoff not being straight till my car accident. Now I have to do it again, I want to get the straight before I seal it.

 

I had some quads installed and they didnt align them very well at all. Not even close. Should've done it myself. So now have to take apart once I find an oven. This is one headlight.

 

Does anyone have any input on LED bulbs vs HID for RX350s? I love the HID but I fear all the extra parts will make it more failure prone, especially if I'm out in the middle of nowhere in a forest or desert.

 

100X better of a chance of LEDs failing before HID. Just get a legit set up, no ebay chinese junk. I prefer only OEM parts, but a second to them would be morimoto, nhk or possibly XD.

 

I have morimotos, maybe I'm just worried about previous experiences with junk lights.

 

Guaranteed the morimotos fail early, at least before any OEM version would. I would carry a spare set just in case.

 

I've had cheapie HIDs in the past, some hit and some miss. The OEM type stuff is always more expensive, but the quality is right on. You can get Denso slim ballasts which toyota and lexus put on their factory equipped HID vehicles for fairly cheap nowadays. All you gotta do is pot them and convert the output to amp and they'll work with any aftermarket bulb. Now, you can even get authentic Philips bulbs that have been rebased to h11. Once you have those and a pair of densos, you basically have an OEM level "kit."

 

If LED headlights(not cheap drop in bulb replacements)are going to fail so quickly...why are all OEM manufactures using them in stock headlights now? I guarantee they will outlast any halogen or HID bulb(if properly spec’d, cooled, etc)
LED tech has came along way, and there is a reason you are starting to see them in production vehicles. Are they as bright and efficient as a properly tuned HID setup? Probably not. But they are coming real close now a days.

 

Yeah that's a whole different ballgame for sure. I took it as him wondering about a "drop in" led in his RX projectors.

 

What LED setups would you suggest being worth the investment?