How to: 1st GEN HEADLIGHT IMPROVEMENT DIARY (PICS)

(Apologies to AA)

"Hi. My name is Glacier, and I own a 92 FORD Explorer."

"Hi Glacier!"

Ok I admit it, I'm addicted... To my 1st Gen Explorer. I love my old explorer. 225K and all original except brakes, tires, shocks, exhaust, windshield and radio - ok a few other minor things as well, but in general she is a stocker with a lot of miles under her belt.

My headlamps have long ago gone south on me, getting hazy and one even has a crack and moisture condensed inside it. To say my light output after dark sucks, is an understatement.

A few years ago I went to Pep Boys and found out that for like $100 I could get a new headlamp assembly. I said forget it. I don't drive it at night that often, it isn't a DD. $200 seemed way too much...and so continued to look at those pitiful old headlamps and grope my way around after dark from time to time.

Recently, as I was perusing these forums, as I like to do from time to time, (though I spend 90% of my time on the Transmissions Forum) I ran across an interesting article in the performance lighting forum.... telling how to increase the light output in the 1st gen headlight system. It is a great thread and I thank Mr. Wizard for his insight and wisdom shared. That thread can be seen here:

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=181879


Yet... intriguing as that sounded, using my old headlamp housings for brighter bulbs resembled putting a tuxedo on a hot dog. I also needed new housings - pure and simple.

Enter the internet. I did a little google search and lo and behold found this link:

http://www.directautomotiveproducts.com/repair-and-replacement-lights-ford-explorer-headlights.html

New headlight assemblies for $35 each for my explorer!! NOW We are talkin!

So... I bought a pair, and in due course they arrived at my front door. I opened one up and was impressed. I took it out the the trusty old explorer to tell the old gal she was getting a set of new headlights and the comparison was AMAZING between old and new.

Here is the driver's side old:



and the passenger side, with water in it



Here is a comparison, old versus new (driver's side old - the "better side")



Finally here are the new bulbs it will eventually get... 9007 XV... 30% brighter than the stock 9004's. (apologies for the crappy pic).




Often my Diaries are transmission related somehow, but on occasion I have done other little Diaries when I've had a project I think others might benefit from (like a 1st Gen front brake job, or AC for example). This one seemed to be too good not to share. SO... I decided to make this little project into a small diary for others to read learn from and do themselves should they decide to.

I did the install this am. Took about 90 minutes , stopping for pictures. I incorporated Mr Wizard's advice and am upgrading my bulbs (though the harnesses he used won't arrive til later this week.) No prob, I'm ready to pop in the brighter bulbs in, oh, say 10 mins.

I will be editing and then uploading the 30 or so pictures today and my tonight will have this diary complete. I just had a few minutes and thought if I got it started it will motivate me to finish it up today. Uploading takes some time so I can start a batch and go work elsewhere, return and finish that batch, add more, etc. and tonight finish up this thread. I am VERY pleased with the end result. (though now the old gal really is begging for that paint job [and Diary] I have been promising her for several years.)

In doing this relatively easy job I did make a few discoveries I think will help anyone following in my footsteps. I'll include those in this thread.

sounds good cant wait to see some pics, my headlights are starting to go out on me aswell. It is nearly impossible to drive at night without my brights being on.

I've had this pet theory, totally unsubstantiated, that the extra wattage from these lamps shortens the life of the headlight and multi-function switches. It will be interesting to see if a problem develops.
Good price on the assemblies though, mine are more mood lights than head lights.

Mood lights! I love it I truly did laugh out loud.

And as for shortened life.... I think that is a given... at least for the bulbs. Multifunction switches will be interesting to see. It's not a huge increase in power consumption and Mr. Wizard's thread discusses that. I owe this project to his thread, and again thank him.

Since I do not drive this daily... I suspect the shortened life will be the difference between a bulb life of 10 years versus 6.

This was a fun and rewarding little project. The thread will take much longer than the project did.

ps. The new assemblies ALSO came with brand new 9004 bulbs in them. So for those just wanting new headlights and not into the upgrade to 9007's, this truly is a great deal. Anyone wanting a new set of 9004's can PM me and have them for the cost of postage.

pps. Shamaal - I was chatting with my GF and shared your "mood light" comment. She teases me about my "old" Explorer ... so her response was to laugh out loud as as well, and say: "we need to go to dinner with those folks".

Modifying Your New Assemblies For The 9007xv

Now, if you plan to just stay with the 9004 bulb, you can skip this part.

The 9004 and 9007 use the same connector. To prevent folks from unwittingly using the 9007 in a vehicle where the stock was a 9004, the bulb manufacturers changed the orientation of certain "locator" pins in the bulb housing. In the 9004 these are at roughly the 12 o'clock, 5 o'clock and 8 o'clock positions. The 5 and 8 get changed slightly in the 9007, so it will not plug into a housing made for the 9004.

How to fix that.

Remove the nibs (pins) at the 5 and 8 positions. The roughly 12 o'clock position pin was the same in both the 9007 and 9004.... so without those "5 and 8 o'clock impediments" the 9007 will nicely plug into a 9004 lamp housing. Not to worry, those are ALIGNMENT pins.... the lamp itself is help in place with a retaining ring.

Here are the nibs (pins) in question:



Here is the main nib (pin) alignment "slot" we will rely on in the 9007 series:



I have found that the easiest way to remove them, is to use a dremel tool with a sanding drum.....(you can use a sharp knife or anything else you like.... but the dremel took about 5 seconds each....)



I also learned to hold the assembly upside down and do this from underneath to keep the little pieces of plastic from falling INTO the housing! (A few blasts of compressed air seemed to work to clean it out though....)

Here the nibs (pins) are (not) - GONE



The lamp seals into the housing with an O-ring. I like to lubricate O-rings anytime they are used and it makes adding and removing the lamps easier in this case.... I have a tube of dialectric grease, perfect for this (vaseline might work as well.)



I lubed the O-ring



and the lamp slid right in happily.... here it is retained in place by the retaining collar....



That is all there is to it.

[I replaced the 9007 Iused in the earlier pics with the 9004 that came in the new housing, since i do not have the adapter cable yet... I'll do with that as Mr. Wizard showed, and change bulbs at that time.... should be a 10 minute job.]

This was actually pretty easy. On a scale of 1 to 10 this is a 3. Tools are some screwdrivers and a 5/16 or 8MM socket wrench. You CAN do this. On Par with an oil change.

Installing The Headlamp Assemblies

It's time to take out the cloudly old "mood lights" and replace them with the new headlights (apologies to Shamaal for shamelessly stealing his name for the old ones).

The process requires that you open the hood, and remove the top "air dam" - them remove the front grille. Fortunately this is all pretty easy.

The top air dam is help in place with little expansion clico style plastic fasteners. There is a plastic "screw" in the middle that backs out with a screwdriver as a fastner in this... there's about a dozen or so of em - back all the screws out:






using a screwdriver near each of the "screws" pop the plastic air dam loose and remove it.

Next the grille. It is held in place by two screws on the top, and two clips at the bottom. Remove the screws..



Then reach behind and push down on the clip while pulling the grille out. I am right handed and the driver's side was easy... the passenger side I got a big dowel to use to push it down. It will come out, but this is PLASTIC... be careful, and take your time... The clip... out, looks like this:



With the grille out.... we are at the headlamp assembly. Before we can remove it, we have to remove the piece that housing the marker (parking) light and the turn signal... it also acts as a bezel for the headlamp. It is held in place by two screws on the top of the headlamp assembly - remove those..



Then there are 3 clips underneath the front. Due to how this is shaped you need to pry it out forward to a point, and then swing the whole thing outward from the grille side towards the outside, like a gate... once you get it far enough out, remove the turn signal bulb holder by rotating the bayonet mount so it will come out... work carefully.... a little force is fine, a pry screwdriver is ok.... but BE careful... PLASTIC.

Once it comes out the main parking light will still be attached:








Remove the bayonet mounted parking light and the light/bezel assembly comes right off - we are at the lamp housing.... 4 bolts....2 on each side... 5/16's or 8mm... remove them



And the assembly will come away from the vehicle... this is an easy way to remove the plug in to the lamp.... better access. use a screwdriver to raise the tangs over the clip and it comes right off.... (be careful OLD plastic is brittle!)



locate the new assembly in place (there is one locator pin on the outside) and add the 4 screws



[WORD OF ADVICE HERE!] Harvest the old clips (3) from on top your old assembly:



The new seemed to give me trouble...



replace the new ones on the housing with the old ones.


Replace the parking light/bezel... first plugging in the lights (turn and parking) and swinging it into placefrom the ourtside in this time... you may need to "pop" it with the base of your hand to get it in place in the clips.... BE CAREFUL. Plastic. All that is left is to replace the two top screws:



You're done! (ok plug in the main lamp first and THEN you are done)



Compare old versus new:



Dramatic, eh?

Other side is exactly the same...



Once they are both in, align the clips on the grille bottom and smack them into place with your fist.... add the 2 screws on top and the grille is back in place. Add the air dam and PUSH the clico's into place without the screws in them... then PUSH the screws back into the clico fasteners (no screwing needed they will PUSH in....) make sure you plug in the lamps and screw down the retaining rings if you have not already done so pre assemmbly - you have NEW headlights!

I'll add one finish post on the change over to 9007's when I get the harnesses.... and something about aiming the headlamps at that time as well.
Otherwise, THREAD DONE.

It's dark and i went for a ride. Half way thru I opened the door and my seeing eye dog ran off. WHOA!

And I haven't even gone to 9007 XV's yet.

YOU HAVE TO DO THIS !!!!! Huge improvement. HUGE.

I can't wait for the 9007XV's!

Well my harnesses arrived today. I'll just describe what I did, the pics are all in Mr. Wizard's thread already anyway.

First I swapped the black and red wires as he described. To release the wire, go to the end with the 3 pins, and using a P*rick punch or long sharp object, just push in at the bottom of the pin while pulling out from the other side. You will cuss and struggle with the first one, and once you figure it out, the rest (3 more) are 15 second jobs.

Next I turned on the 9004 lamps and marked the garage door with masking tape mid beam.

Finally I removed the 9004's and plugged the 9007XV bulbs into the headlamp assemblies, and locked them in place with the retaining ring. I plugged the appropriate end of the harness into the 9007's and the other end into the stock harness end.

Alignment

[As noted I had parked the Explorer out from my garage door about 10 feet. With the 9004's installed I put masking tape at the level of the mid beam on each side.]

After the 9007's were installed the beam centers were higher. Using a small pair of vice grips to turn the adjusters, I rotated them until the beams came down to where the 9004's were as shown by the masking tape.

Are the 9007XV's brighter? Yes. Dramatically? No. But the dramatic difference was the headlight assemblies I replaced. Overall a HUGE amount brighter than before.

Costs: Headlamp assemblies $90 incl shipping
9007 XV's 20 (local auto store)
conversion harness 25 Shipped. See article for a link

TOTAL COST $135.00

WELL WORTH IT !!!

Great write up as usual Glacier!

Great find for $35 each also. I may have to do this.

FROADER said:

Great write up as usual Glacier!

Great find for $35 each also. I may have to do this.

Click to expand...

Thats for sure a steal. I will be adding this to the list.

Fantastic writeup Glacier.
Those were some seriously hazy headlight housings.
(Fortunately mine were a bit clearer than those.)

Moodlights!! <g>

very nice man excellent write up as usual ill be sure to do this improvement as mine look almost like yours...
~troy~

The new ones have a lifetime warranty, so even if the stronger bulbs mess it up it will be covered. How many more watts are the 9007 compared to the 9004? They sell off road 100 watt bulbs to replace 80 watt bulbs so you could keep the same style bulbs without having to dremel out those tabs. Did you look into HID kits? Those will make an even bigger difference though there might be more UV light from their color spectrum, and cause the plastic to get discolored faster (unless they make some sort of UV coating to protect them). Why wasn't this thread started in the performance lighting section?

BrooklynBay said:

The new ones have a lifetime warranty, so even if the stronger bulbs mess it up it will be covered.

Click to expand...

What new ones? Anyway there is no issue with these things burning up a headlight housing if that is what you mean.

BrooklynBay said:

How many more watts are the 9007 compared to the 9004? They sell off road 100 watt bulbs to replace 80 watt bulbs so you could keep the same style bulbs without having to dremel out those tabs.

Click to expand...

Mr. Wizard explained all that in his geek section at the end. It is about 10 more watts. A lot of "off-road" lighting stuff is not street legal here in CA.

BrooklynBay said:

Did you look into HID kits? Those will make an even bigger difference though there might be more UV light from their color spectrum, and cause the plastic to get discolored faster (unless they make some sort of UV coating to protect them).

Click to expand...

Now you are talking major mods and big bucks. Not worth the hassle and engineering. I was looking for simple (and inexpensive) and I found it and shared it.

BrooklynBay said:

Why wasn't this thread started in the performance lighting section?

Click to expand...

I thought about it, but I didn't see this as "performance" just asimple replacement of headlight housings and a minor changeover to newer brighter bulbs. I'll leave the HIGH PERFORMANCE to the HID projector folks and those needing to light night into day offroad. I did link it in Mr. Wizard's writeup.