New Project in the works.

[trsandrew]

My best recommendations for those considering retrofitting the OEM US or EU (projector) lights is:

1) Find an oven big enough to fit the entire headlight in. It makes the task of opening both much easier and much cleaner. If your oven is not big enough at home, see if a friend or family member has a bigger one. These are huge headlights.

2) I then bake for 17 minutes at 285 Fahrenheit. The trick is to get up under the front lens in the channel and get the entire thing to lose its seal with the back of the housing. I do this by gently prying at the channel to get the black plastic housing to separate from the permaseal. Once that's done around the entire perimeter, pick a spot on the bottom side of the housing to get a broad flathead screwdriver up under the lens in that channel and get it to pop out. It's a hell of a workout, but including baking time I can get in both in 45 minutes no problem.

2) Use a heat gun specifically to remove the OEM permaseal. My trick in doing so is to heat it to the point that it starts to gloss over and melt, then get under it with a flathead. It seems to then just pull right out in strips for me, at least the OEM Ford / Valeo sealant junk.

3) Remove all OEM sealant and replace with a proper sealant. Morimoto RetroRubber uses OEM Koito butyl rubber which is not only a sealant but an adhesive, making a very strong but flexible seal when the housing is cooled.

 

[A7xogg]

This thread is good info. Very re insuring that the mini h1 fits without extensive cutting cause looking at the headlight lens shape and doing simple measurments it looked like a really tight fit.retrofit looks great man. HOpefully i will be joing the retrofit crew again soon. I had the 7.0 on my last car( also had 5.0 and 6.0 and yeah) the 7.0 are super wide and high beam goes forever

 

[parapraxis24]

This thread is good info. Very re insuring that the mini h1 fits without extensive cutting cause looking at the headlight lens shape and doing simple measurments it looked like a really tight fit.retrofit looks great man. HOpefully i will be joing the retrofit crew again soon. I had the 7.0 on my last car( also had 5.0 and 6.0 and yeah) the 7.0 are super wide and high beam goes forever

Yep, hardly any cutting/sanding required and they fit fine. My only recommendation would be to completely sand down/cut off the oem bulb base so that the threads poke through quite a bit. This allows you to use the H4 bracket to secure the Mini H1, and will allow better rotation when aiming the H1s. I ran into a problem where I did not sand flat the OEM base, which did not give me enough wiggle room to aim the H1s correctly. Mine point outward about 6-8" at 25FT.

I'll fix it eventually, but it still works only that they'r aimed a bit wide on the road but still effective.

 

[posts]

Yep, hardly any cutting/sanding required and they fit fine. My only recommendation would be to completely sand down/cut off the oem bulb base so that the threads poke through quite a bit. This allows you to use the H4 bracket to secure the Mini H1, and will allow better rotation when aiming the H1s. I ran into a problem where I did not sand flat the OEM base, which did not give me enough wiggle room to aim the H1s correctly. Mine point outward about 6-8" at 25FT.

I'll fix it eventually, but it still works only that they'r aimed a bit wide on the road but still effective.

I loosened the alignment posts on my headlights to fix that. Just a small amount was enough for me.

 

[parapraxis24]

I loosened the alignment posts on my headlights to fix that. Just a small amount was enough for me.

Hmmm I didn't think you could do that. Have any pictures by chance?

 

[posts]

No pictures sorry, but there is the adjustable post, then the bottom post, then the post closes to the outside of the car. That's the one you can loosen. There is a star socket if you pop the reflector off. Then you can turn it with a 90 degree set of pliers.

 

[parapraxis24]

Interesting. I'll take a look at it later on this weekend and see what's up. Thanks for the tip

 

[posts]

Interesting. I'll take a look at it later on this weekend and see what's up. Thanks for the tip

Also sometimes my lights would flicker like machine guns. I had to add this to level out the input. Ford pulses the power to run the DRLs.

https://www.theretrofitsource.com/capacitor-link.html

 

[parapraxis24]

Also sometimes my lights would flicker like machine guns. I had to add this to level out the input. Ford pulses the power to run the DRLs.

https://www.theretrofitsource.com/capacitor-link.html

I have not had that problem. I'm pretty sure the US FiST doesn't get DRLs.

 

[posts]

I have not had that problem. I'm pretty sure the US FiST doesn't get DRLs.

Yeah my relays would chatter and then lights would flicker on start up, they would also cut out after a high rpm pull. This resistor fixed all of that.

 

[parapraxis24]

Where did you ground the relays to? Sounds like you have a weak ground and the extra grounding post on the harness fixed your problem.

 

[posts]

The same place I grounded this capacitor to, the bolt that comes off of the battery lol.

 

[A7xogg]

So i ended up ordering trs canbus harness instead of the relay harness so that i wouldnt have an extra harness in my engine bay. Got the idea from my last retrofit on a gti and i saw a focus thread where the guy did that also.

 

[posts]

So i ended up ordering trs canbus harness instead of the relay harness so that i wouldnt have an extra harness in my engine bay. Got the idea from my last retrofit on a gti and i saw a focus thread where the guy did that also.

Wish I knew that the first time lol.

 

[A7xogg]

Wish I knew that the first time lol.

Only down side is bulb warm up time is increased slightly.

 

[Blackwolf1778]

subscribed!!

 

[trsandrew]

So i ended up ordering trs canbus harness instead of the relay harness so that i wouldnt have an extra harness in my engine bay. Got the idea from my last retrofit on a gti and i saw a focus thread where the guy did that also.

I imagine you'll run into some issues in doing so at some point, unfortunately. The Fiesta doesn't have a canbus system, so the relay is the correct harness for it.