Thanks for the tip, Todd. I was hoping to avoid the bumper work and I did. I climbed underneath this afternoon and looked around. I had a hunch that if I removed the corner lights, I may be able to gain some sort of access to the bolt. My hunch was right. There are two holes right below the corners. One is almost perfectly lined up with the bolt. I used a long socket, two extensions and a swivel. I couldn't even get it with a ratchet. Had to use a straight screwdriverish handle (whatever you call it) and voila,it loosened. First one was a piece of cake. 2nd one took some effort but it came out. I quickly swapped out fogs and did NOT reinstall the troublesome bolt. The fogs are in there quite securely with just the 2.
While I was out there, I removed my Xenon Depot HID kit. I'm getting a setup installed by this local guy in Calgary. I think I mentioned it on the other site. He's putting in a 4300K hi/lo setup that he has had very good luck with. He's going to install the setup for me next week and is going to take a look at the fogs too. Now that I have a 2nd set of fogs, I can trash a set of plugs to mod the H1 bulb into it somehow. This guy is very accomoplished and it should be a piece of cake for him. He doesn't have any yellows in stock. I might try both a set of yellow and 4300K with the 4300K going in first. He has good prices on bulbs as it is ($150 CAD for a pair which works out to around $130 US, not bad for a brand name). I've asked him to knock some off the yellows which should be here in a few weeks.
I'm letting him do the install for a few reasons. He's pretty much throwing in a free install because I want to buy two sets. He's one of the best in town and will guarantee it will work. Also, he only warranties the bulbs if he installs them. Too many issues with people returning them because they don't know what they're doing. He's going to do it on my schedule and comes to me to do it. I know it will be done right and I'll pretty much have him to deal with any issues with it down the road. It's more expensive that doing it myself obviously, but I can live with that. I do OK work with electrical stuff, but I don't always route my wires in the most sighly fashion. I also want him to do it right, mount the ballasts etc.
I'm pretty stoked. I know how great HIDS are having used the XD kits for a year. I plan to sell that kit soon. I rarely use high beams anyhow, so even if this setup isn't perfect, I'm sure it will be fine. He also has a "flash to pass" setup only whereby the HID bulb is wired parallel to a narrow halogen tube. You don't get high beams but you still can flash someone who's doddling in front of you and it won't kill the HIDS when you do it. I opted for the full hi/lo option and I think it does flash to pass too. He told me he's sold many of these bulbs in the 6 months he's carried them and only one was returned. This was some oil guy in the Northwest Territories. The cold weather snapped part of the mechanism. but it was bitterly cold for a week when it happened. The good thing is, if there is a problem, he's right here in town to take care of it. His prices are veryfair, he has excellent expertise and he knows his stuff. His low beam kits use GE capsules and although the ballast manufacturer isn't as well known as Philips, they look to be great ballasts he uses. They actually provide for a cleaner install because of the way things plug into it.
gthid.ca if anyone's interested. I'm not sure if he does mailorder. Probably does. He seems to have his sh*t together.
