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How to: Install bi-xenon HID projectors into an 02-04 Xterra

16K views 96 replies 36 participants last post by  heus33 
#1 · (Edited)
Installing HID Mini H1 Bi-Xenon projectors into a 2004 Xterra

Projectors: XTRA-LIGHT H1 Bi-Xenons with clear lens available on my www.hidprojectors.com website - direct link to the kit here: http://hidprojectors.com/product.php?type=2 (comes with mini Gatling gun shrouds, rubber washers, some adapters and wiring)
Bulbs: H1 HID 6000k (4300k and 5150k also available)
Ballasts: 35W XTRA-LIGHT Ballasts with the 9007 wiring harness.

Total time: Takes about 3-4hrs (more if you perform any modifications).

Here's a quick writeup covering most of the steps necessary to perform this modification. General disclaimer - I'm not responsible for any damage to your vehicle if you take on this project.

Its not difficult at all if you are generally mechanically inclined.
All pics taken with my iPhone 3G.

1. Remove grill and headlights (I assume you can figure this out)
2. Clean the headlights really well - trust me you want this stuff to be clean.
3. Preheat oven to 300* - while the oven is heating perform step 4.
4. Remove the plastic headlight ring and all bulbs and screws (don't forget the two torx screws (T-15) on the side of the headlight). This includes the rubber gasket on the back of the headlight. The headlight should look like this when done (the gasket is still on in this pic and should be removed).



5. Bake headlights at 300* for 10 minutes - I chose to do one at a time but you can easily do two at a time if they will fit in your oven.
6. Wearing gloves carefully remove the headlight (dont touch any remaining metal) - place it on a towel or something to protect your countertop. Separate the lens from the housing using a flat head screwdriver, LIGHTLY prying at each tab and around in various places until it comes off (it should come off with very little pressure needed - work each tab just a bit until they are all loose and the lens basically separates itself). When you're pulling the lens off you'll see a lot of the adhesive coming with the lens like melted, stringy cheese - use a paper towel or something to catch these strings, you don't want them falling onto the chrome lens - makes a bit of a mess. Heres a pic of the lens removed.



7. Put the lens aside, its not needed now.
8. Flip the headlight over and pry up on the little tabs holding in that little chrome thing that is hanging out in the middle of the lens. I used a small pick and a flat head screwdriver. Once you get these pried up that little widget can be removed and set aside (keep this if you ever want to go back to stock since you'll need it to reflect the light back onto the reflector). Pic of it removed from the back and the front.





9. Optional step - This will make the installation of the projector easier but its not required. Remove the reflector bowl from the housing. There are three places that hold this in - one 8mm screw on the back (this is the headlight adjusting screw so count the approximate number of turns it takes to remove so you can get back in the ballpark when you reinstall it. There are two white tabs that need to be squeezed in to allow the bowl to be removed here. Go slow, you don't want to force this - I used a small pick and a flat head screwdriver to depress the tabs (be patient here).
10. Remove the bulb holder from the back of the projector (three screws).
11. Slide the rubber washer that came with the projector over the back of the projector and slide the projector in to test fit - there is a ton of room here (good news!). I did not thread the bi-xenon wires through the hole (If you are keeping the reflector stock you need to run these wires through the hole now - this is probably the preferred method. You can see what I did in the Modification section). Pic of the projector in the housing - now we're getting somewhere.



12. Secure the projector to the housing. The projector comes with a lock ring and some adapters. You will have to mess around with this a bit - using different combo of lock rings, washers, adapters, etc until you get a good tight mount. On the driver's side I only used the H4 adapter that came with the kit - it fits perfectly on the back of the housing. Secure the bulb holder with the three screws and you've got a very secure mount (for now). On the passenger side I used the smaller adapter, then both lock rings and then the H4 Adapter - for some reason the spacing was different (your experience may differ so just get creative here if you need to). When you mount these for the last and final time you might want to put a small amount of thread locker on the lock rings and those three small screws to prevent them from backing out. Pic of the H4 adapter and mount.



13. Pic of the shroud mounted and pic of the lens set back on to ensure clearance - this is gonna look great! Remove the lens again - not needed anymore. ***when you install the shroud for the final time, make sure to use some adhesive so the shroud doesn't wiggle itself off of the projector inside the headlight***



14. Pics of the first test. The projector is on the drivers side. Passenger's side is the stock housing with a 8000k HID plug and play kit. Check out the difference in the glare.



15. Pic of the cuttoff (remember, pass side is the stock housing still). This is the step where you'll need to twist the projector a bit to get the cuttoff horizontal. You'll notice that the H4 adapter will let the projector rotate a bit, you'll need to figure out a way to stop this from happening once you've got your cuttoff set. I'm using a dab of JB weld on the adapter and housing to lock everything in place but for you who want to keep this completely reversible you might want to find a less permanent solution - some silicone would probably work just as well. You can mark your spot on the H4 adapter or perform this securing step while the lights are on the truck so you can ensure that you have the correct alignment. Either way - double and triple check that your projectors are aligned before you put everything back together.



Pic of the JB weld:




16. If you're happy with this as is you're almost done. Take the headlights back out of the truck and reheat the housings and lens (pop them back into the oven at 200* this time and just for 3-4 min). Put your gloves back on, reinstall the lens, apply some pressure here to make sure you seat the lens properly, then place some clamps on it and let it cool. After it cools you might want to run some silicone around the edges to ensure that you wont have any leaks.
17. Reinstall the lights and enjoy your new projectors!


***MODIFICATION SECTION***

If you're sold on the projectors and don't want to revert back to stock here are some options for you.

1. Paint your chrome housings. The projectors are sealed and don't use the reflectors any longer so feel free to do what you'd like here. I scuffed up the chrome with a green scotch brite pad then wiped it down with some mineral spirts and shot it with the krylon fusion semi-gloss black paint (same as I used for my plastics).

2. Later I decided Id rather have my housings a metallic gray so here's a pic of that.



3. You could also paint the shroud if you wanted - I liked the way it was so left it as-is.
4. Modify the existing shield hole to feed the bi-xenon wires through. I drilled this out and then used a square and rat-tail file to enlarge the hole to fit the wire connectors. I did this b/c I didn't want to damage those small wires when I was fitting and refitting the projector and trying out various spacers and lock ring combinations.



5. Add anything else you'd like: Angle eyes, LED strips, tint, etc. I didn't want any of that stuff in mine so I buttoned it up as described above.
6. Now is also a good time to replace any old bulbs.
7. I also polished the lens to remove any weathering/fading. My approach was turtle wax rubbing compound followed by polishing compound followed by Scratch X. I used a powerball on my drill.
8. The final result.












I'll get some night pics up of the cutoff in a few days.
 
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19
#2 ·
looks like eyballs


i <3
 
#4 ·
if i do it i think i may actually paint it like eyballs, with the whites AND irises
 
#5 ·
That looks fantastic. I'm going to be doing that for sure. The Mustang come's first in modifications though. But this guide will definitely help with that.

I love the blacked out reflectors. It really completes the look. Bravo.
 
#8 ·
need night pics
 
#10 ·
Got the lights aimed and put about 50 miles on it last night. Lights were great! The width was impressive and I didn't get flashed once. I noticed a little bouncing of the lights when I would hit a bump though. Got up this morning and noticed that my shrouds had worked their way off of the projectors! So I had to open them back up and apply some adhesive to the shroud to ensure a good bond to the projector. Didn't think that would happen - I'll go and edit my original post to make sure this isn't skipped.
 
#14 · (Edited by Moderator)
SICK! I'm doin this! Awesome write-up Hues!!
 
#16 ·
Got some requests for links to the exact products I used so heres a list:

Projectors: Morimoto Mini Bi-Xenon
http://www.theretrofitsource.com/pr...d=221&osCsid=1068e84c7c21e48a2e660595ecf7c44f
Relay: 9007 Bi-Xenon Wiring harness http://www.theretrofitsource.com/pr...d=151&osCsid=1068e84c7c21e48a2e660595ecf7c44f
Bulbs: H1 6000k (got mine off of eBay)
Ballasts: 35W Digital Ballasts (I already had these)

You can get the bulbs and ballasts from the Retrofit Source but I chose to piece those together on my own. TRS offers complete kits as well and the price is pretty good for the high quality stuff they offer. http://www.theretrofitsource.com/pr...d=227&osCsid=1068e84c7c21e48a2e660595ecf7c44f
 
#18 ·
Would you use the exact same stuff to do a 2000 or would something change?


+rep btw
Not sure how well this would work in the 2000s and 2001s. Your lights don't have clear lens which can impact the beam output. I am also not sure how much room you'd have inside the headlight itself. Your lights could also be sealed differently so there are too many unknown variables which is why I didn't include them. The process is similar regardless of the vehicle however you're on your own with the 2000 headlights.
 
#19 ·
Not sure how well this would work in the 2000s and 2001s. Your lights don't have clear lens which can impact the beam output. I am also not sure how much room you'd have inside the headlight itself. Your lights could also be sealed differently so there are too many unknown variables which is why I didn't include them. The process is similar regardless of the vehicle however you're on your own with the 2000 headlights.
Bummer. Might give it a shot over fall break. I really want HIDs but I want them done right. I'll dig around a bit and see what I can find....

Thanks for getting the wheels turning and showing me how its done!
 
#21 ·
Thanks for reminding me about those Steven, but I'd have to drop $100 for housings before I even started the actual work. If I could make the ones I have now work, that would be awesome. I'm also searching for other vehicles that have headlights that I could retrofit more easily while still fitting in the stock location with little or limited modification.

Remember, my broke ass starts college at UT in August, so the mod budget has taken a major hit. Tuition hikes are absolutely killing me, and I've got a ton of scholarships. I feel bad for kids that can't do as well in school as I have...
 
#22 ·
for the stock 00-01 housings the diffuser lenses willthrow your beam pattern all over the place
 
#24 ·
dang.. had i known about this earlier i wouldn't have bought my HIDs... think the housings will fit the 9007 bulbs?
No, the Morimoto Minis will not work with a 9007 bulb, only H1s. Replacement bulbs are about $15-$20 on eBay though - thats not where the money is (unless you want Phillips brand bulbs).

If you already have an HID kit you can reuse your ballasts and maybe even your wiring harness. You'd need the projectors and the H1 bulbs if you choose to do the same retrofit as I did. The wiring harness you have will work fine for the low beams - the trick with a regular HID wiring harness is getting the high beam solenoid to activate. Youd have to find a way to trigger the high beam without cutting power to the low beam (since they're now the same single filament bulb). I found it much easier to just purchase the $35 wiring harness from TRS.

We have a lot of room inside of our headlights so theoretically you could make other projectors work as well. The reason I choose the Morimotos was beacuse they don't require you to hack up your stock housings. Other projectors will need to be custom mounted into your housings, the Morimotos have a lock mount that uses the exsiting bulb hole.
 
#25 ·
An important update.

If you purchase the wiring harness from TRS you'll need to switch the blue and white wires in the provided headlight plug (the blue plastic plug) or else your high beams won't work. Just take a small flat head screwdriver (like one you'd use for a set of eyeglasses) and press down on the top of the pin (from the inside). This will allow you to slide the pin out from the back and swap their positions.

It has has something to do with the way that the headlight switch grounds out to trigger the high beam. Takes litterally 2 min to do.
 
#26 ·
After about 75-100 miles of night driving over the past week I am loving this upgrade.

The projectors do have a very little "wobble" in them when you hit bumps and potholes but its just a factor of how the projectors mount. I suppose if you really wanted a firmer mount you could add some bracing inside the light to eliminate this. But overall it is not an issue for me.

I'd rate this upgrade a 10 out of 10 in terms of improved visibility.
 
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