INSTALL GUIDE: European headlight installation with LED headlight bulbs and LED running light wiring

I used isoprophy alcohol wipes to clean the surface of the bulb and adapter before gluing them together. That may help you.

And yes the weight of the LEDs was the struggle I was dealing with, very annoying.

Concerning the horizontal aim, it is this torx bolt just to the outside of where the low beam bulb boot goes (old pic).



The tool you need is a "E7" (male torx) socket, I bought a set at Harbor Freight for a few bucks. For the drivers side I also recommend using a wobbly adapter and a 3" extension.



The drivers side is barely accessible through the engine compartment but the passenger light requires removal to be adjusted. I would confirm if you even need to adjust the horizontal aim before proceeding. I wish I knew this before I started tweaking them but lesson learned.

OK, I thought that that might be it but didn't go messing with it.

Sent from my OnePlus 3

You may not have to adjust it. I am thinking I idiotically adjusted mine which probably wasn't necessary. Very rarely will you have to adjust horizontal aim on a factory headlight unless something went awry during shipping, of course it never hurts to check though.

I'll be sure to use an alcohol swab on both the bulb base and the adapter this time around before the glue application.

Yea, I had no idea just how sensitive the 3 metal prongs are to excess weight.

Btw, speaking about those prongs holding the bulb in place. With the stock halogens, did your bulbs have a tiny amount of wiggle/play when they were correctly seated? I ask because I noticed when I reinstalled the halogens last night after the failed attempts at the LEDs/HIDs, both of my halogen bulbs have the smallest amount of movement to them when installed. In comparison, the one HID bulb that did seat correctly was in tight. No wiggle or play at all. Just checking in case I might need to try and 'tighten' the three prongs a bit via bending them inward.

I was very very very tempted to install the Osram Rallye's instead of putting the stock bulbs back in, but I have to admit, the increased wattage thing still concerns me. I'm not sure if I'm just being over protective of the headlights and the wiring harness, but I know how my luck in life goes. 99 people could run these without issue, but I would be the 1 of the 100 who would melt the harness or char the projector bowl or something lol.

-Matt

I just realized it was long overdue, but I went through the thread and found key posts that may help those who don't want to read 50 pages and put them at the bottom of the OP. I also edited and added some clarification of the aiming process and the tools needed.

[MENTION=3476]Roflwafflez[/MENTION] - Mine were like that too. I used some needle nose pliers to bring mine back in, but be careful, the metal seems soft and excessive bending may ruin them. Luckily, I've gotten this setup pretty much finalized (hopefully) and won't have to tinker with the bulb adjustment much anymore.

Hmm, yea I might need to fiddle with those prongs as well. Picked up some nail polish remover so hopefully I'll be able to clean/file/reset the adapters soon. Sadly work the next few days so can't install the HIDs anyway until at least Wednesday :/.

Decided to pull the headlights again to adjust the prongs on the inside to hold the bulbs better. Here's a (blurry) pic from the backside in case anyone is curious about the prongs we're talking about:


Also, something that I just noticed randomly, though doesn't really have much importance. Given that these headlights are from the UK, and are used specifically for the German Ford market, I figured the bulbs that were included from the factory would be Osram. However I noticed that the bulbs that came with my headlights were in fact Philips H7 (again, sorry it's blurry. I don't have very steady hands):


For comparison, here's the backside of an Osram H7:


Just though I'd included those for fun. Won't have any updates on the HID progress for a few days at least. Also excited that my new wheels are shipping out tomorrow, but that's for another thread in a few weeks.
-Matt

Went at one of the bulbs with the acetone/file to get the surface a bit smoother for reapplication. Of note and to be expected, the acetone was pretty harsh on the plastic. Can see all the discoloration it created in white in the photos. I used Q-tips to apply the acetone around the base of the bulb and on the adapter piece itself. After resetting the adapter, it's much more secure than the first time. I tried to pull it apart by hand and it wasn't budging.





-Matt

That sucks about the adapter problem . Interested to see how the Philips bulbs compare to the Rallye's. For a wiring harness, are you just going to order a heavy duty Ceramic H7 harness?

-Matt

I'm 99% sure that I can use the ballast ends of my current HID relay harness and adapter them to H7 female, it should serve the exact same purpose. I will be testing that soon and just ordered some wiring harness adapters to go from 9006 male to H7 female.

Nice, sounds intriguing.

I wanted to ask also, did you previously have a regular H7 HID kit installed before the D2S/H7 setup? Without modified bulbs for the return wire I mean. I'm curious as to just how much distortion the return wire actually makes specifically in our headlights. Given that we are already making a small compromise trying to use HIDs in halogen projectors, I wonder if another compromise can be made for the standard H7 HID bulbs.

-Matt

No, I had these bulbs I ordered from XenonSupply that have a tab on both sides you can install it either way. I am actually selling these if you would be interested in giving these a go. $25 shipped.

Thanks, I did consider those but I feel like they're problematic in that only one supplier seems to have them, and they don't respond to inquires (I tried contacting them some weeks ago a few times). Would rather stick to something that can be replicated/replaced in the future when the bulbs eventually do start to dim/color shift.

Still curious to see how those Philips halogens work out though.

Sadly, I am starting to think that sticking to halogen bulbs will be the best case scenario. As much as I really want (and am still going to try) HIDs, it seems like their are so many obstacles that reduce the overall pay off. For example, even if these D2H bulbs with adapters do work, the though of having to sand down future replacement bulb bases and glue on adapters anytime a bulb needs to be changed sucks lol. I'm giving some though to trying a standard H7 HID bulb without the swapped return wire just to see how bad it really is lol.

-Matt

I wouldn't recommend it unless you want to be disappointed. The shadow from the wire is so bad, I beg you not to waste your time and money like l did!

That's good enough for me! Lol. I'll see how this D2H/adapter thing works out in the next week or so. Hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst haha.

-Matt

Mine are holding tight still. I did squeeze them closed pretty tight before putting the HIDs in.

Got some LEDs for the signal lights.

Nice. Are they switchback LEDs?

-Matt

Wow, the HID war for these headlights is getting EPIC.

I'd be very happy with a good quality LED bulb that will actually fit into the low beam projector on these headlights and not have weird boot issues or other problems. Has anyone tried the newest Xenon Depot LEDs in H7? What I like about those is the weight is about right and the diffusion ribbons don't have any of the issues that cooling fans do. I just haven't seen if anyone has actually tried to install them in the euro-spec headlights.

How is it that wanting something so simple is so impossible?

Based on how the Osrams performed this morning through the fog, I think I'm going to stick with halogens and use a wiring harness to ensure they have full power.

The HIDs and LEDs seem to be too bright which throw out way more light and affects the output pattern from the projector.

The RacingVision bulbs are brighter than the Osram Rallye but at the cost of reduced life. I will be testing and comparing the two very soon.

Hehe if you scroll back a few pages, I have a set of the XenonDepot X-treme LEDs in H7's sitting in my room right now. I tried really hard to get them to install correctly (IE seat correctly in the projector housing and get the dust boots to fit with the ribbon). I simply could not get it to all fit together well. I do think with some dust boots that were deeper than the ones I got from TRS, they could work, but then you run into fitment issues in the engine bay with how far back the boots will stick out. On the weight issue, I also honestly feel like they still weigh too much for the prongs that hold the bulb into the projector housing. I'll put it this way, when I was trying to install the bulbs in the projectors and get the dust covers to fit, every single time I slightly bumped the bulb, it would dislodge. After trying for 45 minutes, I simply gave up and put the stock halogens back in. Didn't even get to install the LEDs on the car lol.

For perspective, here is the LED bulbs with the ribbons sitting in the TRS 75mm dust covers:




As you can tell, even if I were able to squeeze all of that into the headlight housing, the ribbons wouldn't be able to correctly dissipate heat because it's such a small area. The ribbons would also be touching every surface inside which wouldn't help.

-Matt