Hi,

The links in the how-to/faq thread are mostly dead, so I did a quick write up on swapping out headlights.

What you need:
Philips head screwdriver
Socket wrench and a socket screwdriver
a socket extension
a 10mm socket


First, pop the hood. On the driver side, near the battery, above the headlight you'll see a little rubber thing that looks sorta like a plunger. take out those two screws and set that piece aside; it will get in the way later.

At the outer corner of each headlight is a phillips screw. unscrew this. Next, carefully pull out the cornering light. If you've ever installed bumper lights, it's the same design - it 'pops' in and out. Once that is out, disconnect it and set it aside.

Now, you should be able to see two screws behind where the corner light was. Use the 10mm socket to remove them.



That was the easy part. The hard part is that there is also two more 10mm bolts you need to remove, on the inside of the front radiator support. The only way to do these is a socket with an extension, it's too cramped and crowded there to use anything else. On my car, two of these were rusted out, and snapped off. It's tedious, and you'll scrape up your knuckes against the engine and stuff. I'll let you know when I figure out what size nut and bolt it takes, I'm going to the hardware store to buy non-rusted ones.

Once those four bolts are out, carefully pull the headlight off the car The grille kinda clips onto the headlights, so try to pop it off too.
Here you can see the four bolt-holes


Get your ned headlights, slide them in, and do up the four bolts.The two outer bolts have a kinda hooking tab in them, to hold it in place.

The tricky part now is to put the cornering light back in. What you have to do is hook the BACK part of the cornering light in first. (the tab all the way to the right of the above picture). Then, you can put in the "pop" thing (it's a little knub of metal on the corner light that snaps into a little hole on the headlight housing) and lastly screw the cornering light back in on the top.

Remember to put the bulb in the cornering light before reinstalling it, and I also found it was easiest to plug in the headlight bulbs before putting them back in. Then, snap the grille back in place, and reinstall the plunger.

And, if anyone is curious, here's a side by side comparison of the 95-96 glass lens (the fluted one) next to the 97-99 plastic lens (the clear one)

 

That's nice of you but I think most people know how to do this or know where to go to find direction.

 

WOW, you know it would actually be helpfull to take pics of the bolts and nuts in there locations before being removed. You mention them over and over agin but dont show anyone where they are and what they look like.
Not a very good write up.

 

i swapped mine over 2 days ago and you should've mentioned how hard it is to pop out the corners - the little pin that attaches to the headlight bracket. i chipped both of them a bit.
a big difference though is there's no glare with my hids - i got ebay depo lights from ChubbieBoi.

 

Mine are all screwed up. When I got into a wreck it screwed the front end real bad, and those metal/rubber pieces that the headlight rests on. Anyone know where to get those pices ??


I think this how-to helps newbies, but it seems so easy.

 

Good point. That's a how-to in itself. Pull the clearance lights out as much as you can without strain, stick in a long flathead, turn in a corkscrew fashion to pop the ball out of the socket...

 

what i needed help with was how to remove the grill, info on that would be a great addition.

 

These?



Might have a set of those, PM me.

 

i understood what he was talking about... bleh.. i know it aint the best write up right now, but hey... it helped me. xD

sounds kinda like what i would have said it..

 

Forgot step 1... disconnect the negative terminal of the battery.
Props for writing your own write-up though.

 

Hm it's an ok write up. I could have used this last week when I was changing my front bumper. Oh well. It needs more pix though.

 

The hard part for me was putting the corner lighs back in - at first, I didn't realize that there was a tab on the curved end that had to go in first, so I couldn't get them in.

The grille seemed to have a plastic clip into each headlight - there are no screws, it just snaps in.

I meant to take more pictures, but I couldn't get a good one of the inside bolts on either side of the rad... I did those mostly by feel.

I'll update once I go to the hardware store and figure out the bolt sizes.

 

it took me less than 5 mins to take off the old head lights. no need to take bumper off.

 

No, he was changing his front bumper and needed to take the headlights off, not the other way around.

 

Exactly.

 

will u people go buy hood struts before u drop moneyz on headlights thou jeez

 

I still need to get some you just reminded me, cause thats the last thing I wanna spend money on. Its not that important to me.

 

Billet Hood Support write-up??

 

My club lock gets the job done.

 

I feel safer with the front strut tower bar holding it up anyway. The hood supports aren't shot, they can hold the hood up if it's warm out, and if it's cold out, it closes very slowly. The FSTB is there as a precaution.

 

nice write up, all the people above saying its bad dont know what theyre talking about. its all just common sense

 

I wrote it because there was 10 minutes of me fumbling with the corners snapping in and out, and another 10 minutes of me trying to find the inside bolts next to the radiator. I know it's not a super detailed write-up, but there isn't one currently

 

Thanks for the write-up, I replaced my passenger side headlight just now.

However, I ran into a problem while I was trying to get it re-aimed.
I've done the 9004 to 9007 mod, and while trying to get my light aimed back down with the bottom screw, it popped out of the socket that holds it to the headlight. Is there a simple fix for this or will I have to go out and buy another junkyard headlight?

 

the bottom adj screw snaps into a piece of plastic that is then bolted to the headlight reflector. I was able to just pop it in or out.

 

did they make halos for 4th gens?

 

Yes they did.





J/k. I lied.
I don't have those anymore after I retro'd my headlights.. Would like them back, but they were DIM. I should make new ones that are brighter, but I'm probably going to do the A8 or R8 style bar LEDs..