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just spent $10 on the car & figured i'd let y'all know how it came out.
saw somebody on here recommend a specific LED pair he got off that worldwide auction site (you can search for: 1300W 195000LM 880 881 899 6000K White CREE LED Fog Lamp Foglight Conversion Kit), so i put in an offer for $10 and had a tracking number the next day.
they was packaged pretty good with some solid foam in the box & the instruction card was what you'd expect from using google translate to go from mandarin to english... back to mandarin & then to english again. but if you don't know how to plug in a twist-lock lamp, you might need to let somebody else handle this job.
first off, they're made of aluminum & are pretty sturdy. secondly, for a design with a fan, it's still relatively compact. here's a quick comparison with the 10yr-old POSs that've been in there since i bought the car & have proven worthless. i tried to line up the levels of the tabs where it'd seat on the back of the projector - notice how the chips align with the filament for the focal point of the lens. additionally, they project left & right of centerline when oriented as installed.
i'll admit that i was initially a bit skeptical of it being a truly 10min plug-and-play swap: take the headlight bezels off, slide my arm down, unplug bulb, untwist, twist LED in, plug up, test fire, reinstall bezel.
...and i was unfortunately 100% right! after finally managing to contort my monkey arms down those little holes, i got the old lamps out but couldn't get the LED to fit in either side. after a little perplexed contemplation, i figured i must not have the right angle on it, so i jacked the car up & removed a bottom panel to get some more maneuvering room. still couldn't get that bugger in there, so i bit the bullet & just removed the whole projector.
considering it looked like it'd been through Pompeii, i decided i may as well clean them now & spent a half hour pulling the other out and giving them some TLC. after putting the projectors back together, i tried to test fit the LED. turns out one of the tabs is too big (looking from LED end to the base with the flat side of the tabs on the bottom, it's the right tab). i ended up MacGyvering a dremel with my screw gun & a pallet nail to grind down about 1/3 of that tab... because when you expect something to be cheap Chinese junk, it's actually made of solid aluminum. after a quick trip back to the car to verify they both actually plug in & work before i pass the point of no return, i went to town with the drill. once i finally got that to fit in the housing, i noticed that it ain't got the little tails on the back ends of the tabs that stop it from turning (meaning once it's aligned & inserted, it'll just free-spin in there instead of twisting to a lock position, using just the rubber gasket to maintain tension).
the following hour involved installing the LEDs, contorting my arm back through the top to reinstall the assembly, test fire, pull back out to adjust alignment (because i've got Z06 screens blocking that screw from the front), repeat until correct, then do the same on the other side. of note, i had to adjust the horn bracket a little on the passenger side due to the fan housing on the back of the bulb - nothing cosmic, though).
after it got dark, i took it out down the road... and realized i aimed them too high. so another 15min later (because i was starting to get the hang of it), i got them aimed pretty good & took my junky camera out for a couple handheld-and-blurry-because-i-don't-own-a-tripod pics for y'all's pleasure.
overall, it was well worth the money/time invested, considering i usually drive with just my parking & fogs until it's actually dark enough outside that i need the lows to see. it's a little more work than expected, but now that you know what's involved with these, you can probably do it in way less than the 3 hours i spent on it.
and in all honesty, having this knowledge beforehand & using a real dremel, you could probably do this in 45min, considering most of y'all can also aim them without completely removing the projector assemblies.
08-09-2018, 04:44 PM
LED fog light review
