Now for something completely different

[John V]

I've been going back and forth with keeping and selling my truck. As a tow pig, it does its job admirably well, despite having a bit of a drinking problem. And it's kinda loud. And it rides like a dump truck. But every time I price out a new truck, I think "hey, my truck is really great. I think I'll go ahead and keep it."

Okay. So for the time being at least, I'm keeping it. Which means I want to fix some of the minor annoyances. One of those is the headlights, which are typical American car from the 90's-2000's, which is to say they're abysmal. The high beams are actually OK, but the low beams (9006 halogen reflectors) are really bad. I made a little money selling car parts I made for other racers, so I decided to take that and apply a little Black Friday magic and upgrade the low beams to HID projectors.

I knew next to nothing about HIDs before starting this, so I had to do some reading. I ended up buying everything I need (hopefully) from theretrofitsource.com. The best option looked to be the Morimoto Mini H1 projector. They're very shallow (for a projector) and have a plain look compared to some of the options. They also have great optics and as a bonus, they're bi-xenons, meaning the high beam and low beam are built into one projector, using a solenoid-actuated shield like a factory bi-xenon. With Black Friday discounts, the projectors, ballasts (35W), ignitors, wiring harnesses and relays, and shrouds came out to just over $200. Not bad for quality stuff.

I also bought a set of aftermarket headlights. I did this because the stock headlight lenses are plastic welded to the housings, and are close to impossible to get apart. The aftermarket ones are held together with butyl which allows them to be easily disassembled by baking them for a couple minutes.

Fortunately, they seem to be pretty good quality. They also look stock.



With the lens removed



The reflectors have ball mounts on the back to allow them to pivot for adjustability. Challenging to remove without damaging them.

[John V]

So the Morimoto H1s are designed to directly replace a standard halogen light bulb. It mounts with a single threaded lug built into the back of the projector. On most cars, you just remove the lens, remove the bulb, and slide in the projector.



A downside of the Silverado's lights are that the reflector housings are extremely shallow. The Mini is the shortest projector out there and it still didn't fit behind the lens.





So I had to make more room to allow the projector to mount further back in the reflector, but I also had to retain the ability to mount it and keep it centered and aligned the same way as the stock light. Time for the Dremel! A little scary.



The backside shows how much material I had to remove. I kept the outer boss untouched because I had an idea how to mount the projector, wasn't sure it would work but I had to try something.



The mounting boss side view. You can see how the outer diameter is tapered, but it's also not perfectly conical - it's built into the curvature of the back of the reflector, but at an offset axis. Annoying. The reflector had to mount perfectly perpendicular to the top edge of that boss.



I made a little delrin piece that indexes off of the outer diameter of that boss and has a hole drilled precisely in the center which is the same size as the mounting lug on the back of the projector. I cut the inner diameter at the same angle of the boss so it fits very well and centers everything as the projector mounting nut is tightened.



With all the cutting, the projector moved rearward about an inch, giving plenty of clearance for the lens.



Plenty of threads on the back of the projector.



So that's where I am now. I need to wire the truck, reassemble the lights minus the lenses, and verify that the cutoff for the projectors lines up well enough with where the stock halogens are, then clean up everything really well and re-install the lenses.

[lip277]

Looking good. I've thought about doing something about the lights on our Yukon as well - but never really done anything about it. I did install HIR bulbs, but that only goes so far when the lenses are 15 years old and the plastic is not in that great of shape any more.

I've thought of putting in Denali headlights (they supposedly 'plug n play') - but with almost 300k on the truck, I think I'll just ride it out.

I am interested in your results - The PSD I have could use some 'help' - as it still has he original headlights.
Although - I do have 480W of driving lights (4 x 120W - 10A bulbs) installed to help that one out. LOL

[bren]

The headlights on my truck are suboptimal as well (particularly the low beams). Once you go xenon it's hard to go back.

[Nick M3]

Have you looked at Sulastic shackles? Combined with Bilsteins and Michelin LTX M/S2s, my 2500HD rides quite decently.

Edit: I guess that is why Denali lights stick out more. Makes sense now.

Edit2: I'm a huge fan of the Morimoto Minis. Love them in our E30s.

[John V]

Truck has Bilsteins and Michelins, so I may need to check them out thanks.

Denali lights are a good upgrade for the GMC trucks. The Chevy has the ugly angled lights and there is no factory upgrade without doing different fenders. Glad you like the Minis, they were kind of my only choice.

[Nick M3]

My general experience with the Minis is that they are better than the supposedly superior FX-R. If you're OCD, expect to spend some time tuning the cutoff shield, though.

[clyde]

Originally Posted by Nick M3

If you're OCD,

[John V]

From what I've read the newest version minis have really good shields out of the box.

[Nick M3]

Originally Posted by John V

From what I've read the newest version minis have really good shields out of the box.

Cool. I have three sets of 6th gen Minis. All required some shield tweaking.