CLOSED - The Retrofit Source GB

fails need by thursday....

 

GA to NY, you'll probably have it.
I don't think it's taken more than 4 days to me either time I ordered.

 

I know it ships pretty quick, but it's by UPS and they love to take their time compared to USPS.

Also said they are going to "start" shipping orders Friday, odds of being in the batch are slim when they were just ordered a week or so ago

 

Pretty sure it's just different bulbs for the different stages

 

So I know I missed the group buy, still debating which d2s or H1 are better. And Andrew any eta on the group buy starting back up?

 

nope, I ordered mine on NOV 3rd and haven't received anything yet.

 

Next year

 

I know he said 2014 I read that I was wondering like what month of 2014

 

GOT MY TRACKING NUMBER EMAILED THIS MORNING FROM TRS

time to take the headlights apart

 

Same here, except I'll wait till thursday to start taking them apart lol

 

Got my tracking as well)) expected delivery is Friday)

 

elivery for me is Thursday

I took my lights out today (driving the girlfriends car at night until I'm done). Removed all the screws, bulbs etc.

Tomorrow they are getting baked and separated. Followed by paint. They will dry until Thursday.

Thursday afternoon begins the housing cutting and mounting the projector.

I have Friday night available and Saturday off too. Worked out well, as most of the work will be done before I even get the projectors!

 

mine says delivery Wednesday. So I borrowed my dad's spare SUV for the week. thinking of taking the front bumper & headlights tonight or tomorrow. get all the baking and painting done Friday night /Saturday morning and hopefully have everything up and running Saturday afternoon/Sunday morning. Going to take my time with this project.

 

Get to the painting ASAP, you want it to cure so you don't get any evaporated solvents inside your headlight

 

Well, I spoke a little too soon about my drivers' side headlight. Thought the bulb was just loose, but it still had flickering/pulsing issues after tightening the lock ring.

So, I'll just post what I did to fix it, but first, a history lesson, and a mistake on my part. Do NOT use this location as a grounding point:



That point is just a mounting header for the giant ceramic resistors inside that metal housing (don't ask me what they are for, no idea). It is NOT a ground. I even went as far as using a Dremel with sanding wheel to sand the mounting point and screw, and this still is a crummy ground. Don't use it.

Unfortunately, I decided that I would now not use anything except a factory grounding point on the vehicle. This presents a problem, because there isn't one located within 12" (the length of the ground lead on the relay harness for the drivers' side - insert evil eye to TRS). The closest one was an extra 6" away, just to the right of the battery, about 8" below the main negative battery terminal connection to the chassis. Looks like one used for the factory headlight grounds, perhaps, not sure, but there are two wires going to a stud at that point, so that's where I was going.

I cut off the ring terminal on the TRS harness that provides power (and ground) to the ballast. For now, I just used a butt splice crimp, until I can solder it. It's worth noting here, that it appears the wire size used for ground is 16awg. I incorrectly assumed 12awg, so had to make it work with my 12awg extension. I then crimped a new ring terminal on, and attached to the factory ground.

Interestingly enough, a factory ground point is made quite differently than just a physical mounting stud, like I was using. The ground point still does not have paint removed from the chassis. Instead, the ground point relies on the screw, which has an electrically conductive washer on it, and then the ring terminal they use has an interesting design that forces a good electrical connection with the washer. The screw then connects to the chassis via its threads, which are quite different from a regular mount. These threads are tight the entire length of the screw, providing a good electrical connection.

After contacting TRS about my pulsing issue, the wanted me to swap the two ballast locations. A pain, I thought, but it made sense. After doing this, the drivers' side fired, but refused to stay lit. This indicated to me it wasn't a ballast problem, but a ground or relay harness problem. Since I already had the wire and ring terminals, I decided to try the ground. It appears that these ballasts are very sensitive to grounds, as Rich pointed out to me a long time ago, I just never listened.

So, after all that, make darn sure you use factory grounding locations, or you could end up with similar results!

Good luck, and happy night driving!

 

Been recommending that forever.
The radiator support is also not a reliable grounding source.

Cut both of the ring lugs off, solder a length of 10ga stranded to the harness, run it across to the driver side, solder that ground wire in, and run it to the body ground by the battery.

 

We had a single ground on our harnesses for the longest time, but the ballast output further from the ground would flicker upon startup, so we had to split up the grounds to eliminate that.

 

When will discounts continue

 

2014

 

Like January 2014