Well, the time has come that my awful custom headlight job has failed me.

I purchased a set of eBay lights when I first got the car because I wanted to clear my blinkers and have black housing. The angel eyes were a plus too..even though they burned out after about 3 minutes.. Problem was that the eBay lights were not HID compatible. I wanted to preserve the HID system. So, taking the lead from my friend who had "done this before," I took apart all four headlights and swapped parts. And I did it all with a hair dryer, screw driver, and brute force. As you could imagine, it goes downhill from there.

You might be saying: "Why wouldn't you just bake the headlights, paint the housing, and buy a set of angel eyes?" Well, where were you 3 years ago? haha. I wish I would have known that was possible. Very upset I did not know about Maxima.org

Now, my headlights are leaking and my ballasts are melting because they're shorting out. All I want to do is fix the lights once and for all.

What should I do at this point? I'm thinking of just trying to find used OEM headlights and ballasts. Then I'll pay someone to paint the housing, clear the blinkers and install the angel eyes so I don't screw it up again. Or should I stay aftermarket and try to find a decent pair that would be compatible with a new HID kit?

I just painted the car and replaced the exhaust, struts and springs. These headlights are killing me! Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Bake the seal open
Unscrew the cheap angel eyes
Put in some LED angel eyes or w.e you like
Touch up or repaint the black housing
Put it all back together using 3M windshield adhesive
Seal it tight using a hair dryer
Buy a H4 HID kit.

 

If you want to just keep a pnp kit in it, then it will be an h3 kit for the aftermarkets(i bleieve the projectors use h3 bulbs, mine did). To reseal the lights, you can just bake them in an oven at low heat(to heat up the sealant) then use some pressure (pushing the two pieces together) to get it to possibly seal back together. I have retrofitted HID projectors in mine(replaced the old ones with some d2s ones), and everything is fine(about 2-3 years) so far.

 

I have a feeling you just need to re-seal the headlights. Get some butyl tape, bake open those suckers, remove all the old sealant, replace with the butyl tape, put them back in the oven with the lenses back on and (here comes the important part) use clamps around the headlights (don't just mush them together with your hands).

I've done a few retrofits and by following those steps I've never had one set spring a leak or have any excess condensation or water inside.

 

If I went aftermarket and just bought the HID kit, what do you think about these? http://www.slickcar.com/productdetai...ProductID=5562

I just did a quick google search to find those on that site. I'm sure they're all over the internet.

 

those would be good, because they are built with projectors already in them, making the retrofit that much easier. Those lights have a metal bracket that holds the h3 projector and the high beam. The bracket can be seperated from the light, and be re-attached when you finish the retrofit. As far as I know, many different d2s projectors fit into those housings(many members including myself have retrofitted those lights). as with anything, shop around for the best price (e-bay, etc)

There are a couple of issues that they will have at a later date. One, is that the parking light(above the turn signal) will eventually melt a bit at the area where you twist the bulb holder in, with regular bulbs(shouldn't happen if you use LED's IMO). the second being that the bulb holder itself will get brittle with time and eventually not hold the bulb in place anymore. Both of these problems may have been fixed in the newer generations, and shouldn't happen too quickly.