August 6th, 2015 - LHD Glass Headlight Installation (Part 1)

August 6th, 2015 - LHD Glass Headlight Installation (Part 1)

 

Repairing the horn was next on the agenda. I was pretty sure that there was nothing seriously wrong with it, as I remember taking off the front bumper a couple years ago to test-fit the brackets for my fog lights and I figured it was probably nothing more than a loose/disconnected wire at one of the diaphragms. Turns out that's exactly what was wrong. I reconnected the top wire on the left horn and beep beep! we're back in business.

With the bumper off, this also gave me an opportunity to check on some things... one of the bolt holes for my bumper mounts (that holds the bumper bracket to the front bulkhead) was stripped. Has been since I got the car. Now that I've had a closer look I'm thinking it's not too serious and may be repairable with a metric tap (I only have an Imperial tap and die set at present), so I will continue with only 3 bolts holding my bumper in place. If it's not easily repairable, I could try and replace it but it is different than the one I salvaged from Project 88, so I've added a pair to my list of needed parts. I was also missing a clip holder for the hood release cable, which I found in my assortment of clips/goodies and replaced.


Then I had a wild idea... with the bumper off, I'm literally 8 bolts away from replacing my headlights. Why not convert now? So, I went to the auto parts store and grabbed a couple of new H4 bulbs for my EDM LHD housings and popped them in. Replaced the left side without issue and had removed the air intake tube and the right side headlight when I ran into a little (big?) problem. The adjustable height motor was preventing the headlight from mounting properly in the front bulkhead.

I'd heard a rumor of this but hadn't seen anyone who had this issue first-hand with an EF8... until now. Searching the Internet I couldn't find much info on this either... I attempted to remove the adjuster motor but without success. It seems to be attached to the reflector inside the housing somehow so I will have to remove the housing to remove the motor... something I'm not too keen on doing at the moment. My biggest issue with buying new headlights is that it's difficult to tell the difference between LHD and RHD headlights for the EE8 VT models. (If someone knows how and can demonstrate with pictures, I'd love to hear all about it)

In addition it seems equally difficult to find LHD headlights without the adjuster motors. I was thinking of trying to mate the back plastic from a JDM housing with the reflector and glass from the LHD EDM headlight but I found a post online where that was attempted and it apparently doesn't work; something about the glass having a dissimilar shape than the plastic.

Either way, "LHD Headlights" went back on my wish list... and the JDM lights went back on my car.

Click here for Part 2

Remember, this blog was written in chronological order so, you will need to click OLDER POSTS to move forward in time, and click NEWER POSTS to go backwards.