Fog Light Retrofit

Bummer....I guess we'll see what I come up with...lol.

 

Alright, so I started tonight (couldn't wait). Hand sawed the lens' off no problem. It took me a little digging through all my tools, but i found some hole saws, so I drilled out the backs no problem. Cut down the factory mounts on one light, and modified the housing to fit, no problem. All the while i've been thinking about how to cover all this up.....no problem. I have a sheet of plexi glass, and this is what i'm going to do. Cut 2 3/8" hole in the center of a 4 1/4" hole (4 1/4" hole is a perfect fit inside the housing and it sits down in the reflector bowl about 1/4"). 2 3/8" hole should give me a little wiggle room around the projector. All this will be painted flat black to match the headlights. Going to bond the projector to the housing, test it on the truck, see how it lines up, then put in the shroud and seal it up. So maybe by next weekend i'll be done, need to go get a 2 3/8" hole saw tomorrow, then i'll be rockin n rollin.

 

Interesting... I just JB Welded the projector into the back of the fog light housing and it held them in place. I like the idea of the plexi, I want to see this plan in action!

 

I am still using jb weld on the back, but i am new to it, so this should be interesting. Once I get the hole saw for the center of the light I'll post a mock up picture so you can see how it is coming together.

 

Here is one mock up. The plexi has not been painted yet on this, but it is going to be flat black. Since the pic. i have painted it. When the lens goes back on you can only see the projector glass . They look pretty good, I think the plaxi was the way to go, It's clean and smooth. Need to come up with a good way to attach the plexi on the inside (probly just use clear silicone around the edge).

 

Are you putting the lens back on, or leaving it exposed like that? That's a neat idea, I hadn't thought of that

 

I will put the lens back on. This was just to show you the inside. I painted the plexi and put the lens on one just to see what it would look like, and I think it looks very good. I have to J-B weld the projectors into the housings tonight, then tomorrow I will test on the truck and if they line up good i'll put the lens' back on.

 

Very nice, I can't wait to see the finished product! I think the way you did it will look great. Mine are so dark, you can't really see the gattling shrouds so they were kind of a waste (should have painted them white).

 

I know I want them done too, but I don't want any issues so i'm taking my time. The Factory housings cracked a little after I cut out the hole so I J-B welded them together, now I have to put the projectors in, doing that tonight, so not too much longer

 

Ok we are all J-B welded up. Here is one of my lessons learned: J-B weld is more runny than you think. I had the lights hanging upside down, and after a few minutes I thought to look at the bottom (which is actually the lens side), and noticed a little bit of the J-B seeping through the hole i cut in the center of the plexi. Not that big a deal, I was able to clean it out. I also had to spend about an hour and a half rotating these things by hand so it all wouldn't leak out. Oh yeah.....applying heat only makes it worse, but cooler air will help (please don't ask me how i know this ). All in all they are bonded for the evening and tomorrow brings promises of ballast, bulb and lens installation. Fill me in on the "wire down mod". is this the nipple on the bottom of the bulb that makes the "L" shape when looked at sideways (if that makes any sense)?






Yes that is a double face palm!

 

Yikes! At least you caught it before it ran onto the lens! The 'wire down mod' is rotating the bulb 180 degrees further than it normally would to let the return wire (the wire that comes out the end of the bulb and returns back to the bulb base) is down. If you just put the bulb in and twist into place, the wire ends up facing up and blocks a decent amount of light.

All it takes to do the return wire down mod is a dremel and a steady hand. If you take the rubber base off the bulb, you'll see a little nub on the bulb base that, when you twist the bulb, makes it stop so you can't keep spinning it in the projector. All you do is shave that nub off so you can spin the bulb 180 degrees past where it should stop normally. Then put the rubber base back on, carefully clean the bulb and install with the return wire down

One note, check back a couple pages about the leak I had in my projectors. I ended up putting a little bit of silicone where the bulb goes into the projector to seal them up.

 

Yeah I re-read this whole post today while I was sitting at work, and thought about doing the same. You also said you were going to silicone over the J-B, did you end up doing that as well? Another thing i tried to correct was the saw marks on the edge of the lens that you could see when they are reattached. If it works i'll tell you how i did it, but if it comes out badly we will never speak of it again lol.

 

I actually didn't go over the JB Weld with silicone. I determined the water was coming in where the bulb plugged into the projector. When I was talking about applying silicone over top of the JB Weld, it was because I thought the housing was letting water in. Once I figured out where the water actually came from, I determined it wasn't my seals that leaked so, if it ain't broke... don't fix it

Which saw marks are you referring to, the back side of the lens caused by the hack saw? If so, spend some time with a razor knife and get off the straggler plastic, then, if you want it perfect, get ready to sand. To me it wasn't worth the extra effort, I liked that white 'ring' it left around the outside of the lens. I thought it looked neat

 

Yeah I sanded it a bit and cleaned off the spurs as well. I also took it one step farther, but like i said before, we'll see if it comes out ok first. Then we spill the beans.

 

Alright, so i should be all done with the fogs, pending a line up tonight when it gets dark. I'm having a hard time putting the pics in the post on this computer, so you will have to look in my gallery. It's all there take a look and tell me what you think. Special Thanks to PUGGA for the ideas and tips, I appreciate it.



If you look in the Gallery you will see some night shots of my headlight retro. I'm having a little trouble with the beam pattern. The cut off lines up great but notice the hot spots. The passenger side is about two foot higher, the driver side is where I want it to be. What do you think? Problem with the bulb inside the projector? How can I remedy this?

 

I pulled a few from your gallery. They came out looking great! I like the idea of the plexi vs. the shroud. The end result looks the same since it's so dark in the housing anyways. I coulda saved myself $15!
As far as your headlight retro, I haven't a clue. I'm still running halogens and don't intend to mess with retrofitting them Brock or Ant might be able to help you out with them. Are they aimed correctly just using the factory alignment screws? That's all I can think of.

 

Thanks for posting them up for me, my wife's computer is an Apple and it's hard to get used to. you can't just copy/paste a photo for some reason. The plexi idea came about b/c i didn't want to spend anymore money on this retro, and i just happened to have a sheet in the shed. As far as the headlights I think the bulb is being held up/down somehow in the projector, might be the rubber grommets.

 

Definitely look into that if you think the bulb is being held at an angle. That means they're not sitting flush on the housing and could be letting water in. Last thing you want is water in the headlights!

 

I forgot to bring the camera when i did the line up but i'll get some in a few days. It's not 100% perfect but i can live with it. The cut off curls up in some weird places, i think it is from the lens'. I can't wait to drive to work in the morning, it's always foggy driving across the lakes on the way there.

 

Another update... the same projector is letting water in again Only thing that isn't caked in silicone is the end of the bulb where the wires feed in. Very quickly losing patience and faith in the Blazers. They're great when they're working but this is getting ridiculous.