How To: Easy Projector Retrofit in OEM Headlights

Hey guys,

Here is my latest tutorial/ walk through. I have been wanting to install HID's but I did not want to glare other drivers. I know there is an arguement on whether or not our headlights cause excessive glare, but I dont want to dive into that. I decided to make this tutorial because I havent seen one made yet for these. I have seen finished product pictures (as others have retrofitted these same projectors before), but not a step by step.

I bought some of those easy to install projector units from theretrofitsource. These are the morimoto mini h1's. These are not top of the line, but are easy to install and require little to no modification. I got tired of looking around and seeing companies charge 300+ just to retrofit other peoples headlights. I figured I would write a tutorial for our specific headlights and show how easy it is to install these.

There are other options for projectors to retrofit, but I chose these because they are almost literally, insert and tighten. Other projectors have wider output, different color, etc (like any other accessory with different features) but require you to cut, drill or otherwise modify your lights in order to use them. These mini h1 projectors are still way better than projectors that come in other aftermarket projector headlights. And these are made for HID lights as well, unlike the other projector titan headlights which obviously are not made for HID's since they come with Halogen bulbs originally.



I will update this thread as I edit my tutorial, but here is a sneak peek.




UPDATE:

Ok so here is the first part of the tutorial.

First you have to open up your headlights. If you do not know how to do this, this thread has a very good walk-though.

http://www.titantalk.com/forums/tit...n-faq-howto-area/85091-how-headlight-mod-painting-inner-housing-our-lights.html

So you go from this:


To this:


I have to give props to SD_Titan. Since I live close by, he helped me with the opening of my lights (and painting).

Now looking at the headlights, if you are going to be installing the projector in the low beam (like in this tutorial), you need to remove the factory halogen bulb reflector. That is, the little cup that is in front of the light bulb shown in this picture.



Since I wanted to mod my headlights with as little modification as possible, I decided to take out this piece intact. I found that wiggling the piece firmly up and down (from the front of the headlight to the back) freed the piece up after a few "wiggles" as shown in this video.


After this piece is removed, you have easy access to add the projector through the original bulb hole.

To continue with the retrofit, you have to remove the plastic/rubber piece that actually holds the bulb in place. This is the piece where the stock bulb would turn and lock. The middle is plastic and the outer is rubber as it is what seals the headlight from behind.

This piece is attached by 3 points where is clips on into the headlight reflector bucket. (Its sorta hard to explain, but the photo shows what im talking about). Once attachment area is where the little arrow is and they are 2 more.



I eventually found it easier to pull back on the rubber seal to free it from the headlight and then pry at the 3 attachment points. Just pull at the outer end of the rubber seal (carefully, as to not tear it!) like this.




Then take a screwdriver or something flat and pry at the three attachment points. This video should clear this up. As you can see, it popped off easily once I extended the rubber seal in the later half of the video.



After these steps you should be ready to start fitting the projector.


This would be a good time to do any other modifications or painting to the headlight buckets themselves. For example, I asked SD_Titan to paint the reflector buckets behind the projector since they obviously wouldn't be needed to "reflect" anything anymore once the projectors were installed.




Here is the overview of the projector I received from TheRetrofitSource.

Side View:



Rear View:



First step would be to remove the rear bulb holder. You can do this by removing the 3 screws holding this part down as shown in this picture.



After that piece is removed, you can remove the lock nut. This is the lock nut that will be holding the projector in place once it is installed in the headlight. My projectors came with the newest version, which can be tightened with a socket (with flat sides). There are older and other projectors that come with the older style lock nut which doesn't have nice flat sides but it serves the same purpose.

Now you can get ready to insert the projector into the headlight housing. The projector should come with two rubber/silicone washers, one large and once smaller. Insert the larger rubber washer on the back of the projector as shown here.





****NOTE**** if you are using a shroud that screws in place, then this would be the time to put it on unless you want to remove the projector later. For example, my projectors came with a "mini gaitling" shroud, but I didnt use it because I felt it was too small for our headlights. I ended up buying separate larger shrouds that can be attached at the final stages since they are not screwed into the projector housing.

Also, if you plan to paint the reflector behind the projector, now would also be the time. Some installers prefer to paint the bucket behind the projector black for looks and to prevent any leaking light to reflect off the chrome surface. This step is a preference. I had Joe paint mine black with Plasti-dip in case later on I want chrome again. You will see the results in the later stages of how it looks.



Once this is done, you can insert the projector in the headlight through the original bulb hole. Dont forget to make sure you stick it in right side up :eyebrow:

The large washer should sit between the projector and headlight bucket as shown.




Now look at the backside of the headlight and you will see that the projector threads are sticking out the back side of the projector (Duh!).

Here is where you should decide whether or not you think there is enough thread. Since I wanted to do as little modification as possible to the actual headlights, I felt there was enough thread to lock it down securely (after numerous test fits). If you feel there is not enough, you could sand down the back of the headlight bucket if felt that it was necessary. I did not think so, so I left it as is.


Now you take the smaller rubber/silicone washer and insert it over the projector threads.






The projectors came with a metal washer as well. This part goes over the smaller rubber/silicone washer. The metal washer has a little tab that fits into an indent on the projector threads. Basically, the part that is cut goes on top as shown in the picture.




Here is why you need to test fit everything. As you will notice, there is a part of the back of the headlight bucket that interferes with how the metal washer fits. You could do two things, grind down the tab on the headlight, or grind down the metal washer. I decided to grind down the washer instead. I took a rough mark as to where it was rubbing against the headlight tab and marked it with a sharpie. I then took a file to it and ground it down.

Rubbing location:



Marking the area needing removal:



End result:




It may take some trial and error to get enough clearance.

After grinding down the washer enough, you should be left with a washer that allows clearance on the headlight tab. Once enough clearance is verified, you can place the washer over the smaller rubber/silicone washer.

It should look like this:



Now you can attach the lock washer in place and start tightening it down (but not to final "tightness" yet). I recommend tightening it down a good amount, you will need the threads of the projector to clear in order to reinstall the bulb holder. You want it loose enough that you can twist the projector, but tight enough that if you rotate the projector (while aiming) it stays in place.



You can also reinstall the projector bulb holder bracket since you will be needing to test the output and need to reinstall the bulb holder to insert the bulb.


Now, since this type of projector installs through the OEM bulb socket, you need to ensure that the cutoff will be straight. Since it attaches this way, during installation, there is no definite way to tell whether or not the cutoff is nice and level. You do not want your cutoff to be off rotation ( looking slanted). The height of the cutoff will be controlled by the OEM headlight adjustment, but this rotational alignment needs to be done by hand. This is completed by "rotating" the projector by hand (after loosening the lock nut) after testing.


Since I dont have my H1 HID kit yet (these specific projectors require H1 bulbs), this part will be explained once I receive my HID kit.




So here is a quick overview of the steps so far.

1. Open headlights
2. Remove OEM bulb reflector cap
3. Remove rear rubber grommet, OEM bulb holder
4. Prep projector (remove bulb holder screws, insert large rubber washer)
5. Insert projector through headlight, insert smaller rubber washer
6. Insert, modify metal washer for fitment
7. Insert lock washer and do initial tightening + reinstall projector bulb holder

The steps left for install is to:

• ensure rotational alignment.
• Final lock nut tightening
• installation of the factory rubber grommet (some modification needed depending on the type of lock nut, but I will get to that in part 2)
• Shroud installation ( This is a variable depending on the type of shroud used, may involve some cutting and test fitting)
• Resealing of the headlights
• final output check/ height adjustment

I know the tutorial isnt finished yet, but I hope its a good enough overview of what is required. The only parts really left is aiming and resealing the headlights. The actual install of the projectors probably took me 1 hour for the first side (since i was taking pictures as well) and like 30 minutes for the second side.

Honestly, the job with these "plug and play" type projectors is very easy. Like I said earlier, there are other projectors that are better, but these are still very respectable and better than projectors in aftermarket projector headlights like Spyders. Plus, with these, you do not have to do any major cutting or drilling for the install since they slide through the OEM bulb socket.

Reserved in case for future text.

PART 2: AIMING and ALIGNMENT + WIRING

Ok, time to finish this tutorial up.

You should now have the projector in place with the lock nut tightened down snugly but with still some play to move.

You now want to re-attach the bulb holder bracket to the projector. Take the bracket and three screws and attach them to the projector. I forgot to take a picture of this step, but you dont really need one to know what I am trying to describe.

I decided to wait to wire the high beam solenoid till after final alignment was done so that will be discussed later in the tutorial.......

With the bulb holder in place, install your H1 bulb and secure it using the lock wire.


With the bulb installed into the projectors and the projectors installed in the headlights, now it is time to test the alignment of the output.

Install the headlights back onto the truck (yes, without the headlight lenses). I recommend screwing ALL the mounting points on the headlight. I made the mistake of doing only the front (behind the grille) and top (under the hood) and my alignment was all off when I checked them again since the headlight can shift if all the install screws are not in place.

You should be left with something that looks like this: Note you can see how my low beam buckets are painted black, as discussed earlier in the tutorial. Not a requirement, just preference.






Now it is time to check your rotation alignment. Since these projectors just slide in place using the OEM low beam bulb hole, they can be off center which will cause the cut off to be crooked. You dont want your cutoff to have a slant to them!

Plug in the bulb into your ballasts and park on a flat surface. You will also need a somewhat flat wall in order to observe your cutoff. I used my garage door which was helpful because I could check straightness based on the edges of the squares of decoration. Any flat wall will work though. I was about 15 feet away when I check my alignment.

Turn on your headlights and look at your cutoff. Check to see the alignment.


Luckily for me (but bad for this tutorial!) my alignment was pretty spot on. I drew some MS Paint to show how yours could be though to give you an idea of what to look for.

Here was my alignment:






As you can see, the left (driver side) projector was aimed a bit higher than the passeger side. Height is adjusted just like the stock headlights, with the adjustment knob. I went ahead and matched up the height of both sides. After they were leveled, it looked like this. Remember, height can be adjusted later one, so you dont have to lock in your final height yet.


Cutoff with height matched:





Now like I said earlier, I was lucky to have a pretty close alignment "out of the box" so to say. I drew some MS Paint of some examples of what to look for though, since everyone's case will be different initially.

Example of what you want:



Possible examples of what you might run into: (pretending the drawn red line is the top of the cutoff)



If you have a slanted cutoff, then you do like what I wrote in the photo. Turn off the headlights, put on some thick gloves (so you dont burn yourself! the headlights were on!!!) and rotate the projector housing. Turn the lights on again and check if you rotated them enough. It might take a couple of tries.


Just for fun, a front shot: LOOK MA! NO GLARE!!! :coolsmile:teethmast






Once you get your alignment where you want it, I suggest marking the back of the projector with a sharpie to give you a guide as to where you thought your alignment was good.

First I removed the bulb, and unscrewed the bulb holder/bracket because you will be needing access to the lock ring. Try not to move the projector too much to not knock it off of where you aligned it!

I know it is kinda hard to see, but I drew a line on the headlight bucket to the chrome body of the projector housing (the part inside the lock ring) with a black sharpie. This is just to give me a guide as to where the rotation of the projector was.




Now you can tighten the lock nut down all the way. It is kinda tricky if you are doing it yourself, because as you lock it down, the projector has a tendency to want to rotate with it, that is why those alignment aides you drew come in handy. If you are tightening it yourself, use one hand to try to hold the projector still and the other to tighten the lock nut. If you have help, have one person hold the projector while you tighten the lock nut.

Although you tightened the lock nut to finalize your alignment, I still recommended checking the alignment once again after wiring and attaching the shroud as it could move as you are moving stuff and attaching wires, etc.


WIRING

So now you have seen your new cool cutoff and hopefully have it aligned to your liking, now you can focus on wiring!


This projector is bixenon, meaning that if you want, you can hook it up to your high beam and when you flash your high beams, the cutoff shield will drop down allowing more light to shine through.

If you decide you want to wire this feature, follow the next steps. If you dont want this, then you can just tuck the wire away without wiring it.

If you are using a projector like mine, you will have a wire running from the solenoid (device that drops the shield when powered). Joe (sd_titan) have me the idea of running the wire though preexisting holes on the headlight. These holes are covered by a piece of tape.

This is the spot I am talking about, in this picture the sticker has already been removed and wires fed through.




In order to get the wires to this hole, I decided to run the solenoid wire though the open spot where the bulb cover/cap used to be (the one above the low beam, the piece shown in the video)

Here you can see how it was routed through there:


Once you route it through this hole, you have access to the openings that were once covered by tape mentioned 1 step ago.

As shown here:



Since I bought my projectors from Theretrofitsource, it came with an empty connector and a pigtail with a matching male connector and wire. Unfortunately, my stupidness broke the pins on the wire coming from the solenoid so I couldnt use the connector anymore. I decided to just hardwire it using disconnect plugs I bought at radioshack.

Feel free to use any type of connector you want. All you need to do is have wire to connect to the solenoid wire and to splice into the high beam wire on the headlight wiring harness.

These are the plugs I used:




I attached one end to the solenoid wires and the other to the wiring that came with my projector. If your projector didnt come with any wiring harness then you can use electrical wire as well, like I said, you only need enough length to go through the headlight hole and reach the high beam wire to splice into.


***NOTE*** If you have any other wires, now would be a good time to run them through this hole. I installed halos in my headlights, so I ran my halo wires though the same hole in the headligh, which is why you see 4 wires coming out of the hole in my pictures.

Once you crimp on (or solder, your choice!) the connectors, I wrapped them in electrical tape to be on the safe side.

You should now have enough wire (either supplied or bought) running through so that you can reach the stock wiring harness. If you havent already, attach the wiring harness to the stock mouting points so that you can see where it runs thoughout the headlight. You are going to need to splice into the high beam wire in order to have a way to activate your bi-xenon solenoid.


Take the high beam bulb connector on the harness and look at the end. The connector should have an identifying mark showing which pin in positive (+) and negative (-) as shown here:




Take the harness, and unwrap the tape that surrounds the wires. Unwrap enough so that you have room to splice in the solenoid wires.

I used quick splice's to splice into them. In my case, yellow wire was negative and blue was positive, BUT DOUBLE CHECK AND GO BY WHAT YOU IDENTIFIED ON THE END OF THE HIGH BEAM SOCKET. I dont know if EVERY year harness is the same, so I dont want to identify the wrong wire as a certainty.



I wrapped the individual splice and then the harness as a whole again with the electrical tape.

That should be it for wiring. That is unless you are wiring other things (like halos) but I wont get into that here since that is a preference add on :teethmast



SHROUDS


Ok, here is another one of those preference parts of the tutorial. I decided to go with a larger shroud that I bought afterwords because I though the mini-gaitling shrouds looked too small. I bought Apollo shrouds as well as centering rings, which is a ring that locks into a groove on the shroud and then slides over the projector.

Here is an example with the original supplied mini gaitling shroud, I found it too small:



And with the larger shroud (after cuts had be made): Harder to see because of it being painted but you can see it fills in the headlight better. White circle is my halo, this picture was taken during a test fitting:



Because this shroud is larger and that our low beam bucket is slightly square, I had to do some modifications to the shroud. After numerous test fittings, i had to trim pieces from the top and bottom of the shield to make it fit.

This is going to be one of those "results may vary" areas of the tutorial (like horizontal alignment) because each case might be different. You may feel you need to cut more or less to get them to fit. My cuts are just how I ended up doing it, as I had no guide to go by.


Here are examples of the cuts I made as an example of what I had to do. The larger cuts are for the top of the shroud and the smaller v cut is to clear the bottom of the headlight bucket. I made the cuts before they were painted (props again to sd_titan for doing my painting):







And here is a shot of the centering rings attached. If you use these, dont forgot to put some sort of glue/epoxy/silicone on them to secure them to the shroud. You dont want them to pop off once everything is sealed up!




FINAL ALIGNMENT CHECK + WIRING CHECK

Here, I suggest checking your alignment again to ensure nothing moved while you were tightening the lock nut or when you were wiring. It is also a good time to check to make sure the projector bi-xenon solenoid is getting power when the high beams are activated.

Attach the bulb holder/bracket back, install the bulb, then attach the headlights to the truck. Turn on the lights and check to see if your horizontal alignment moved at all. If it did, now would be a good time to fix it. If you have to make major rotations, you probably have to unscrew the bulb/ bulb holder, etc. If minor moves are needed, you could probably get by by twisting the projector with force, as it should be tightened down. You should be able to get slight movement as the rubber washer behind the projector slips with the heavy force.


Also, turn on your high beams to make sure the solenoids are dropping down on the projector. If they are not, then your splicing might not have pinched down on the wire enough or you have a loose connector or crimp. I had an issue where my quick splice didnt break all of the stock harness wire cover so I had to redo it. Now would be the time to make sure you have a bad connection!



After everything checks out, you can attach the shroud as well. If you are using those centering rings, attach them to the projector with glue/silicone/epoxy.


***NOTE*** Try to use a glue/epoxy/silicone that doesnt "gas out". You dont want your lenses to fog up from the glue fumes. I used GE Silicone II as recommended by others, but I heard of jb weld being used as well.




Now that your wiring is in place, you tested your alignment, etc you can now install those rubber boots that surround the bulb socket.

You will have to make some modifications depending on what direction your lock nut is situated.

In my case, the lock nut fit into the bulb socket cutout pretty closely. I did have to make a small trim in order for the plastic section of the boot to clip on.

Here is a picture explaining it:




And here, you can sort of tell where I cut the plastic in order to clear the lock nut.



If you havent noticed, you have to remove the bulb bracket/holder before installing the rubber boot.

Now you can attach the shroud to the projector. If you use a centering ring, then I suggest adding a glue/epoxy/silicone to secure it to the projector itself as well. what I did is use a bit of silicone and rubbed it on the inner portion of the ring, then slide it on the projector.



That should be it! I think I covered it all. Last step would actually be resealing the lens to the headlights and setting your height via the adjustment knob. But that is easy to do if you have read the headlight mod how-to posted at the beginning of this. And the height adjustment is just turning the adjustment knob on the headlights.

You would also need to seal the area where you ran the solenoid wires through the headlight backing/housing. I plan of applying a glob of silicone there. It might be worth siliconeing the area around the lock nut after the rubber boot is back in place, but I am going to run the headlight without that and see if any condensation occurs.

If you have any questions I will try my hardest to answer them.

I am by no means an expert on the subject, but I wanted to document my experience since I hadnt seen a Titan specific tutorial for this. I hope that it gives those interested an overview of what is involved with this "screw in" type projector.

Thanks for this thread !!!

Subscribing...since I can't sell my stickers, I might as well mod them!

subscribing, thanks!

Sorry for the delay. Hope to have the initial write up by this weekend. I have all the pictures, just have to write the text, lol.

Another sneak peek, I bought some larger shrouds. Looks better in our headlights I think. Another $15 for these (value version, since I am going to paint them).

If this is as easy as you say it is...and they result in a light pattern with a wicked cutoff...then this will finally convince me to bake my headlights open...definitely looking forward to the write up...

Scribin'.........

Scribed I got a spare set of stocks layin around

Please don't mention Spyder Projectors in this thread!

j/k

jakejc said:

anyone know if these will be a direct replacement for the spyder projectors?

Click to expand...

Doubt these would be a direct replacement because I think the spyders mount via screws vs through the bulb socket.



oh and thanks for bumping this thread, I gotta get off my butt and write it up. Sorta forgot since SDtitan has my lights, lol

Thats why I'm trying to retrofit with something better!!! haha

thats my goal is to do a nice write up for everyone what I mainly like is the shape already made, the ccfl rings and the led lights already in place.
Should I go forth and put projectors in the high beam as well or will that not be as functional as a high beam since it doesn't throw light everywhere like meant to be? I have plenty of other lights on the truck that i can use to make light but i want something that i can turn on in the city and not get in trouble for since it is only the high beam you know

First post updated with part 1 of the tutorial (for those of you subscribed!). For part 2 , i need to pickup my headlights and then wait for my HID's to come in lol. But the first part should give everyone who is interested the overall overview.

Thanks Spoonman!

Now I'm tempted to retro my spare set that's sitting in the garage. Time to open up a shopping cart @ TheRetrofitSource or JB.