TexasTroubadour
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2018
- Messages
- 3
Good day, all.
This is my first time writing a post for CPF but I've found good flashlight advice here before. Currently rocking that ThruNite T10!
Anyways, I've always been the kind of person who likes to improve and modify cars. There are great benefits to doing things like changing springs and shocks, dynamat/speaker upgrades, upgrading brake pads, etc. I have a Ford Escape Limited 2011 model with the 3.0 and I've done a lot of work to it.
I always assumed that all the proven benefits of aftermarket upgrades also applied to lighting upgrades. I started with LED bulbs for the interior and cargo lights, which I believe is allowed.
But that wasn't enough. I had seen all those folks saying "them stock lights suck, engineers can't design s***" about many other cars and they would install upgrades. I knew that the "Spyder" halo lights and PnP HID and LED kits were bad, but I heard a lot of good things about "Projector HID retrofits" and that RetrofitSource company and all their Morimoto brand products.
I bought a set of D2S projectors, good Osram bulbs, a Bi-xenon H13 relay harness, Morimoto ballasts, and all the installation materials. Then I got a set of aftermarket (not even TYC or the like, they are no-name) headlight housings and sold my OEM ones. I took them apart, cut a hole in the reflector, JB-welded the projector in place while aiming it from EIGHT feet away from my garage wall. Of course, for some reason I put the cutoff step like TWO feet to the left for both lights so the alignment was way off.
A few months ago I realized this was bad, and took them apart, took out the projectors, and "fixed" the alignment. Also painted all the chrome (except turn signal reflector). In the process of stripping the chrome, I somehow took it off of the sidemarker section so I "fixed" it with metallic spray paint. Then I "fixed" the butyl sealant with GE Silicone 1.
Notice a pattern here?
Then, a few months later, I was having a problem with moisture. I took them apart again, This time, I used black GE Silicone 2, which bonds to plastic but has a problem with off-gassing. Haze all over the inside of the housings and there was still moisture. I replaced the silicone with butyl and "fixed" the hazing with methanol.
The housings are now beyond repair and the alignment isn't 100% perfect. The projectors can't be adjusted width or rotation wise, so they're further apart at short distanced because I installed them wrong. The clear coat on the cheap headlight housings is coming off, and I still can't fix the moisture problem. They're held together with a few cans of silicone, including the back housing cap is MADE of silicone since it's nonexistent.
Enough redneck engineering. I want to do the right thing. I really thought that I could build something better than OEM with JB weld and Chinese parts. The worst part is that I wrote a 2-page forum post on the Ford Escape forum teaching people how to do this, because hey, Dunning-Kruger. I'm gonna get the mods to delete it.
I also had some LED exterior bulbs for my license plate light, reverse lights (window tint) (they're worse than stock), a no-name LED third brake light, and some amber LED sidemarkers (actually pretty good). All but the brake light housing were from Morimoto so they're coming off too.
I know what I did was "wrong," illegal, a whole lot of things. I thought that the projector cutoff was important and paid no attention to anything else. I didn't know about foreground light, lens construction, any of that. I'm not even sure that the beam pattern was better than what I had originally.
Heck, I don't even know if my OEM lights were "bad," maybe just misaligned. I had them for years when I was in high school and college and they never gave me trouble. I just thought the 5500K, foreground light (I used the car to illuminate a worksite), and cutoff flicker. Thought it was cool flying down the highway thinking I could see everything with the highbeam on (covered all the trees and other useless areas.
So I'm gonna buy new Ford OEM housings, get an H13 heavy-duty wiring harness, new Philips Xtreme Vision bulbs (as per the mod's recommendation), and a professional (not garage door) alignment. I will also replace my other lights on the exterior with appropriate upgrades (194->2825 if that's allowed, new 3457s on the front [no amber coating left], etc).
I think I know why it was "wrong," but can someone explain the thing about subjective foreground light and the other problems with retrofitting?
What kind of performance can I expect with putting things back to stock and using appropriate upgrades like bulbs and wiring?
What else can I buy to improve lighting? I was thinking about getting some Hella 550s for an aux. highbeam. I heard that the Hella 90mm modules have fantastic performance and are available in many configurations, but how could I mount them on the front bumper? Custom buckets/enclosures?
Thank you for any advice that I will receive and the resources that will help me decide to fix my mistakes.
This is my first time writing a post for CPF but I've found good flashlight advice here before. Currently rocking that ThruNite T10!
Anyways, I've always been the kind of person who likes to improve and modify cars. There are great benefits to doing things like changing springs and shocks, dynamat/speaker upgrades, upgrading brake pads, etc. I have a Ford Escape Limited 2011 model with the 3.0 and I've done a lot of work to it.
I always assumed that all the proven benefits of aftermarket upgrades also applied to lighting upgrades. I started with LED bulbs for the interior and cargo lights, which I believe is allowed.
But that wasn't enough. I had seen all those folks saying "them stock lights suck, engineers can't design s***" about many other cars and they would install upgrades. I knew that the "Spyder" halo lights and PnP HID and LED kits were bad, but I heard a lot of good things about "Projector HID retrofits" and that RetrofitSource company and all their Morimoto brand products.
I bought a set of D2S projectors, good Osram bulbs, a Bi-xenon H13 relay harness, Morimoto ballasts, and all the installation materials. Then I got a set of aftermarket (not even TYC or the like, they are no-name) headlight housings and sold my OEM ones. I took them apart, cut a hole in the reflector, JB-welded the projector in place while aiming it from EIGHT feet away from my garage wall. Of course, for some reason I put the cutoff step like TWO feet to the left for both lights so the alignment was way off.
A few months ago I realized this was bad, and took them apart, took out the projectors, and "fixed" the alignment. Also painted all the chrome (except turn signal reflector). In the process of stripping the chrome, I somehow took it off of the sidemarker section so I "fixed" it with metallic spray paint. Then I "fixed" the butyl sealant with GE Silicone 1.
Notice a pattern here?
Then, a few months later, I was having a problem with moisture. I took them apart again, This time, I used black GE Silicone 2, which bonds to plastic but has a problem with off-gassing. Haze all over the inside of the housings and there was still moisture. I replaced the silicone with butyl and "fixed" the hazing with methanol.
The housings are now beyond repair and the alignment isn't 100% perfect. The projectors can't be adjusted width or rotation wise, so they're further apart at short distanced because I installed them wrong. The clear coat on the cheap headlight housings is coming off, and I still can't fix the moisture problem. They're held together with a few cans of silicone, including the back housing cap is MADE of silicone since it's nonexistent.
Enough redneck engineering. I want to do the right thing. I really thought that I could build something better than OEM with JB weld and Chinese parts. The worst part is that I wrote a 2-page forum post on the Ford Escape forum teaching people how to do this, because hey, Dunning-Kruger. I'm gonna get the mods to delete it.
I also had some LED exterior bulbs for my license plate light, reverse lights (window tint) (they're worse than stock), a no-name LED third brake light, and some amber LED sidemarkers (actually pretty good). All but the brake light housing were from Morimoto so they're coming off too.
I know what I did was "wrong," illegal, a whole lot of things. I thought that the projector cutoff was important and paid no attention to anything else. I didn't know about foreground light, lens construction, any of that. I'm not even sure that the beam pattern was better than what I had originally.
Heck, I don't even know if my OEM lights were "bad," maybe just misaligned. I had them for years when I was in high school and college and they never gave me trouble. I just thought the 5500K, foreground light (I used the car to illuminate a worksite), and cutoff flicker. Thought it was cool flying down the highway thinking I could see everything with the highbeam on (covered all the trees and other useless areas.
So I'm gonna buy new Ford OEM housings, get an H13 heavy-duty wiring harness, new Philips Xtreme Vision bulbs (as per the mod's recommendation), and a professional (not garage door) alignment. I will also replace my other lights on the exterior with appropriate upgrades (194->2825 if that's allowed, new 3457s on the front [no amber coating left], etc).
I think I know why it was "wrong," but can someone explain the thing about subjective foreground light and the other problems with retrofitting?
What kind of performance can I expect with putting things back to stock and using appropriate upgrades like bulbs and wiring?
What else can I buy to improve lighting? I was thinking about getting some Hella 550s for an aux. highbeam. I heard that the Hella 90mm modules have fantastic performance and are available in many configurations, but how could I mount them on the front bumper? Custom buckets/enclosures?
Thank you for any advice that I will receive and the resources that will help me decide to fix my mistakes.