Morimoto projector headlight conversion

[mmag1982]

so here we go, i joined the retofit club, this is i'm almost 90%, only headlight re sealing remains.
Special thanks to Ben 824 and Danman2k , i just started from based on what they did and tried to improve a bit.

For anyone attempting to do this, the morimoto mini H1 kit and rampage aluminum housings are the best way to go, the rampage housings are very strong and durable and their glass has zero distortion effect. As for the header panel issue, i only had to open a 2'' hole just to pass the bulb tail and wiring, the clearance on the battery side is very tight, so i had to make my lens as close to the headlight glass as possible.

here I used a paper template that i drew with a compass and a protractor to accurately mark 0, 90, 180 and 270 degree on each casing, i kept part of the rear collar to use it to center the fixture that will hold the projector. This made things a LOT easier, i only had to do very minor rotational adjustments in the car.

I used a pvc pipe coupling as a headlight extension, i got this idea from Ben 824 but improved on it a bit. The nice thing is that i got it to interference fit the part of the collar i left, no epoxy needed, projector perfectly centered on housing, complete dis assembly is possible.

here's where i need some help. light output and color is just amazing, looking at the headlights now they look out of place on the jeep! BUT

The right headlight cutoff line got messed up, i took off the lens holder to clean it, and put everything back exactly as it was, but the cutoff line got yellow and blurry as you can see. it wasnt like that before i took the lens off, any ideas?

 

[DanMan2k06]

Pics?

 

[mmag1982]

i am posting some in the thread, you cant see them?

 

[DanMan2k06]

Negative ghost rider

 

[mmag1982]

so here we go, i joined the retofit club, this is i'm almost 90%, only headlight re sealing remains.
Special thanks to Ben 824 and Danman2k , i just started from based on what they did and tried to improve a bit.

For anyone attempting to do this, the morimoto mini H1 kit and rampage aluminum housings are the best way to go, the rampage housings are very strong and durable and their glass has zero distortion effect. As for the header panel issue, i only had to open a 2'' hole just to pass the bulb tail and wiring, the clearance on the battery side is very tight, so i had to make my lens as close to the headlight glass as possible.


here I used a paper template that i drew with a compass and a protractor to accurately mark 0, 90, 180 and 270 degree on each casing, i kept part of the rear collar to use it to center the fixture that will hold the projector. This made things a LOT easier, i only had to do very minor rotational adjustments in the car.

[/IMG]
I used a pvc pipe coupling as a headlight extension, i got this idea from Ben 824 but improved on it a bit. The nice thing is that i got it to interference fit the part of the collar i left, no epoxy needed, projector perfectly centered on housing, complete dis assembly is possible.

[/IMG]

[/IMG]

[/IMG]

[/IMG]

here's where i need some help. light output and color is just amazing, looking at the headlights now they look out of place on the jeep! BUT

[/IMG]
The right headlight cutoff line got messed up, i took off the lens holder to clean it, and put everything back exactly as it was, but the cutoff line got yellow and blurry as you can see. it wasnt like that before i took the lens off, any ideas?

 

[mmag1982]

i will throw a brick at my laptop if those pics dont show up, something is wrong with my account, all the photos i post just dont show up

here's a link to my photobucket
http://s1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii605/mmag1982/

 

[DanMan2k06]

Mmag those look great! The cutoffs are a little discolored, but who cares. Huge improvement. What is the green thing on the back of the housing? Plumbing fitting? How did you attach it to the housing?

 

[sheffeyva]

Yes a very nice start. Why is your right headlight (or left depending on how you look at) not having the sharp cutoff? Did you try a bent shield mod or something?

 

[DanMan2k06]

No two Morimoto projectors are the same. Sometimes they match perfectly, sometimes they are way off from each other, like in his case. Mine had a fine color match, but one of them had too much "bow" to the cutoff. Some patience fixed everything.

... This is all assuming he didn't mess with any of the optics.

 

[CobraMarty]

No two Morimoto projectors are the same. Sometimes they match perfectly, sometimes they are way off from each other, like in his case. Mine had a fine color match, but one of them had too much "bow" to the cutoff. Some patience fixed everything.
... This is all assuming he didn't mess with any of the optics.

For the love of humanity, please tell me you're not doing an ACTUAL retro with garbage eBay projectors?? I like what you're doing here, but to me this would be the equivalent of doing all the work involved in a big brake kit, and then buying some 10 year old brake fluid at your neighbors garage sale.

Morimotos don't seem so perfect either. Where are they made? :dunno:eace:

 

[mmag1982]

Mmag those look great! The cutoffs are a little discolored, but who cares. Huge improvement. What is the green thing on the back of the housing? Plumbing fitting? How did you attach it to the housing?

Thanks everyone, this green thing is what makes the setup so rigid. Its a PP or PVC piping end to end reducer. very tough material used in hot water systems. it has the same internal diameter as the outside diameter of the circular collar at the back of the headlight housing.

So i kept 1/3 of that collar as you can see in the second pic, i highly recommend this as i was able to tightly fit the green pipe reducer to the headlight with no epoxy, welding, bolts or whatever, just a very tight interference fit. The threaded lock nut on the back of the projector takes care of the rest.

i think i'll leave the projector with the blurry cutoff alone , i don't want to mess things up now

 

[CobraMarty]

mmag-
Could you have left all of the collar and only cut out inside of the collar? Great find on the green pipe reducer.

 

[mmag1982]

since the projector bowl is oval it is much wider right to left. 74mm across exactly, and 58mm up to down, the collar's inside diameter is also 58mm, so i made a template on paper for an ellipse matching the rear shape of the projector ( 58mmx74mm)and marked it on the headlight case. dividing the collars circle to 360 deg, you can keep around 60 degrees of free collar up and 60 degrees down. from 11 o'clock to 1 and from 5 to 7. the rest had to go to seat the projector properly.
using the collar also automatically centers automatically centers your cutting and the projector in the casing.

 

[CobraMarty]

that's great.

 

[DanMan2k06]

Morimotos don't seem so perfect either. Where are they made?

In China, of course. With a fakemeout Japanese name. But the point is, they CAN be good projectors. They've been proven many times by many people. If you buy from TRS, they already hand select and adjust them for you.

In regards to your retro, I'm not hating at all. I'd just hate to see you put in all the time and work doing something "right", and not come out of it with the best possible results. Now come on man, where are the updates!

 

[CobraMarty]

That's funny 'fakemeout name'. Waiting for some other housings 7" round and bigger projectors. Soon, but the projectors are on the slow boat from china.

 

[bpas328xi]

In China, of course. With a fakemeout Japanese name. But the point is, they CAN be good projectors. They've been proven many times by many people. If you buy from TRS, they already hand select and adjust them for you.

In regards to your retro, I'm not hating at all. I'd just hate to see you put in all the time and work doing something "right", and not come out of it with the best possible results. Now come on man, where are the updates!

Here's my post from my build thread. :wave1:
http://www.cherokeeforum.com/f46/project-keepin-clean-127621/

My boredom finally got to me today so I decided to test fit my HID projectors and see how they looked/worked. I didn't do a night shot because it was starting to rain so I had to yank them out and put the Sylvanias back in before the clouds decided to release a torrential downpour. (which it didn't

)

The projector is hooked up to a jump box because the light was flickering and I thought I had a bad ground (I put the projector in really quick and grabbed a ground at the nearest possible point). Turns out I hadn't let the bulb warm up long enough. Lol. They work perfectly fine after they've warmed up. (I'd forgotten that HIDs have a warm-up period)

The angel eye and devil eye were not hooked up in any of these pictures because this was only a test fit.

Mmmmmmmmm.

Low beam. (the cutoff is crooked because I just have to straighten the projector a little bit)

High beam.

I didn't put in the passenger side because the battery was in the way (needs to be removed for real install) and because I didn't feel like playing with 23,000volts in the rain.

I really like how they look when off and the light output seems to be much better than stock (or even my "upgraded" sylvania silverstars). I can't wait to install them for real!

 

[bpas328xi]

In China, of course. With a fakemeout Japanese name. But the point is, they CAN be good projectors. They've been proven many times by many people. If you buy from TRS, they already hand select and adjust them for you.

In regards to your retro, I'm not hating at all. I'd just hate to see you put in all the time and work doing something "right", and not come out of it with the best possible results. Now come on man, where are the updates!

Here's my progress from my build log.

http://www.cherokeeforum.com/f46/project-keepin-clean-127621/

My boredom finally got to me today so I decided to test fit my HID projectors and see how they looked/worked. I didn't do a night shot because it was starting to rain so I had to yank them out and put the Sylvanias back in before the clouds decided to release a torrential downpour. (which it didn't

)

The projector is hooked up to a jump box because the light was flickering and I thought I had a bad ground (I put the projector in really quick and grabbed a ground at the nearest possible point). Turns out I hadn't let the bulb warm up long enough. Lol. They work perfectly fine after they've warmed up. (I'd forgotten that HIDs have a warm-up period)

The angel eye and devil eye were not hooked up in any of these pictures because this was only a test fit.

Mmmmmmmmm.

Low beam. (the cutoff is crooked because I just have to straighten the projector a little bit)

High beam.

I didn't put in the passenger side because the battery was in the way (needs to be removed for real install) and because I didn't feel like playing with 23,000volts in the rain.

I really like how they look when off and the light output seems to be much better than stock (or even my "upgraded" sylvania silverstars). I can't wait to install them for real!

 

[Ben824]

so here we go, i joined the retofit club, this is i'm almost 90%, only headlight re sealing remains.
Special thanks to Ben 824 and Danman2k , i just started from based on what they did and tried to improve a bit.

For anyone attempting to do this, the morimoto mini H1 kit and rampage aluminum housings are the best way to go, the rampage housings are very strong and durable and their glass has zero distortion effect. As for the header panel issue, i only had to open a 2'' hole just to pass the bulb tail and wiring, the clearance on the battery side is very tight, so i had to make my lens as close to the headlight glass as possible.

here I used a paper template that i drew with a compass and a protractor to accurately mark 0, 90, 180 and 270 degree on each casing, i kept part of the rear collar to use it to center the fixture that will hold the projector. This made things a LOT easier, i only had to do very minor rotational adjustments in the car.

I used a pvc pipe coupling as a headlight extension, i got this idea from Ben 824 but improved on it a bit. The nice thing is that i got it to interference fit the part of the collar i left, no epoxy needed, projector perfectly centered on housing, complete dis assembly is possible.

here's where i need some help. light output and color is just amazing, looking at the headlights now they look out of place on the jeep! BUT

The right headlight cutoff line got messed up, i took off the lens holder to clean it, and put everything back exactly as it was, but the cutoff line got yellow and blurry as you can see. it wasnt like that before i took the lens off, any ideas?

Very Nice work! I like your take on the "housing extension" seems even easier than what I did. Only thing I would be a little worried about is moisture getting in the headlight and condensation building up in there. But that only depends on how much rain you get in your area which may not be a concern at for you.

I actually have developed a terrible cutoff from the driver side projector. I took it out thinking that maybe I began to have bubbling and peeling in the bowl extremely early since I am running the 50 watt ballasts (which I expected to eventually have just not this early) but upon inspection of the bowls they seem perfectly fine. No bubbles, peeling, or even discoloration of the chrome. I called up TRS and described my problem to Nate and he said he was stumped and that my problem sounded unusual and strange. I told him since I am in the area I could come by one day and let them check it out and he said they would love to have me stop by and we can throw the lights on the bench in their shop and we can figure out what is going on. Now that is customer service right there! I will post back once I go by TRS and we see whats up with my projectors. The passenger side one still has a pretty decent cutoff and output. Only thing I have noticed is there is a faint yellow line right above the cutoff following it parallel over the center "arch." I never noticed it before and I am not sure if it is a new development either but I will ask the TRS guys while I am there as well.

 

[wanaB4x4]

i will throw a brick at my laptop if those pics dont show up, something is wrong with my account, all the photos i post just dont show up

here's a link to my photobucket
http://s1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii605/mmag1982/

very nice.. im almost done with mine no pics yet but i had to do kinda the same but im in between using aluminum on the back or the pvc