Morimoto Mini H1 Retrofit Inbound!!!
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coolblue
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Location: Washington State

Re: Morimoto Mini H1 Retrofit Inbound!!!

by coolblue » April 30th, 2015

You should get bigger shroud IMO..
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teezythakidd
Posts: 120
Joined: November 13th, 2014
Location: Tri-State Area, USA

Re: Morimoto Mini H1 Retrofit Inbound!!!

by teezythakidd » May 4th, 2015

coolblue wrote:You should get bigger shroud IMO..


If anything, I'll get the Iris or E36 shrouds.


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teezythakidd
Posts: 120
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Location: Tri-State Area, USA

Re: Morimoto Mini H1 Retrofit Inbound!!! (fixed it!... kinda)

by teezythakidd » September 3rd, 2015

Yet, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction... hope you've got your cup of tea ready, because there are a lot of words up ahead.

So I did a bit of work to my left projector (driver's side) on Tuesday. I don't think I'm quite "finished" yet still, but I am completely over this entire retrofit, to be honest lol.

To begin, I did – what I considered to be – the most crucial task in order to "correct" the projector: grind down more of the reflector butt so that the lock ring would sit flush against the base of it. Took a couple of minutes for me to re-aclimate myself with the rotary tool and about 5 minutes to actually do. Had to bake the headlight and pull it out so it wasn't adversely affected by the fiberglass dust (or whatever it is). Funny thing... with the pigtail connector (for the bixenon functionality) I somehow got the black lead stuck in the darn thing so I couldn't pull it out at all, but I was able to pull the red lead out with no problem. Pulled the projector away from the reflector as far as I was able to and placed a small towel over it to make sure it was covered... and then I dremeled away. I used a pair of vise-grips to tighten the lock ring instead of with my bare hands like I did the last time (not a good idea).

Another tragic feat was that I cracked part of the reflector bowl that latches onto the securing screw (left side of the reflector facing outward) when I first did the retrofit back in... April(?)........... and after I had buttoned everything up this past Tuesday and baked it to seal, when I put the rubber boot back onto the low beam ring, I guess I pushed in on the reflector a bit too much and it unlatched from that screw, so I had to bake the headlight again to fix it. Fortunately, I did fix it, lol. It isn't perfect and won't ever be again because its "broken" to an extent, but works without issue now. Just felt like sharing this, lol.

It was just starting to get dark out so I was able to get a rough rotational adjustment on the projector and height adjustment on the assy. itself... wasn't very accurate because I wasn't parked at a solid wall (it was brick... and a bunch of trees...) so I waited a little while to go back out and find somewhere to aim properly.

Yet another tragic sidenote...
Since I changed the bulb on the driver's side (went from Innovited 6000k back to the XB 3Five 5500k) I obviously had to change the bulb on the passenger side. Recall that there was a nice blue color flicker on the passenger side and not much on the driver's side before...
Before I actually changed the bulb on the passenger side, I took the bulb holder and screws out in lieu of tightening the lock ring a bit more (don't ask...) and I TOLD MYSELF that I should either NOT do this or go inside to get my magnetic screwdriver because a screw would get lost either inside the headlight assy. or vanish into the unknown... of the parking lot......................... and that's exactly what happened, because I wasn't using a magnetic screwdriver. Actually, I discovered there was another screw bouncing around in the headlight assy, in addition to the one that dropped in while I was doing this. So that whole darn thing has to come apart just to get rid of the screws. It was the top one for the bulb holder, too. So the bulb isn't sitting right at all, which [I hope] explains why I no longer have no color flicker on this side. Makes sense, because now I have color flicker on the driver's side. Lol, smh.

Anyway, during aiming, I accidentally unplugged the XB cable from the bulb base (passenger side) and got a niiice quick shock. Almost lost my arm to the car when I pulled back lmao. Went and turned the headlights to "OFF" in the car, and then plugged the cable back in and redid everything. Now, this first time aiming was terrible because it was extremely high (didn't realize until the next evening, and I wasn't aiming them with markings and tape and whatnot). I was actually getting flashed lol, I felt so bad
So the following night (last night) I went to the same spot to aim again and lowered both headlights... nearly scolded my right arm when I was aiming the passenger's side headlight because of the... some hose or whatever. Not the coolant one but the one adjacent to it. It was hot lol. It actually might've been the pulley, I don't remember.
But ah... I think I got it right this time... period. I know I need to fix the passenger side projector... since I have a replacement set of bulb holder screws from TRS, I'm honestly considering just replacing the one screw that fell inside and going on with it. I turned and shook the assy when the screw fell in, with hopes that I could get it to fall out of the high beam socket but that failed. They're actually stuck (last I checked) underneath the black part on the bottom of the headlight... like, underneath the shelf that the reflector itself sits on. So I think I'm "OK" for the time being, but that is something that is gonna irk me lol.

Ultimately, though, the driver's side projector is a lot clearer, those hotspots are fixed, the color flicker I've wanted is there (not perfect, but way better than before), light output is a lot cleaner, and seeing at night is 100000000000x better for me. I can see the cutoffs a couple hundred feet in front of me, sides of the roads are illuminated clearly... its just... waaaaaaaaaaaaay better than its ever been and I feel that a big part of that comes from switching back to 5500k lol. I wish I would've done this a lot sooner... I wanted to get it done before the semester started (Monday) but didn't realize how peaceful my schedule actually was until I got into the groove. Better late than too late though because it'll start snowing tomorrow outta nowhere lmao.

Anyway, here are pics I took with my iPhone... I'll take ones with my Nikon another time... probably after I fix the passenger side light. But we all see how long it took me to get the driver's side done... hahah

These "leaks" still need to be fixed at some point but I think I can live with it for now. I reckon changing shrouds would help. I currently use Mini Graphite, and I'd really like to get the Iris shrouds. Blacking out the chrome in the reflectors would be nice too, but...... that's so much work lol...

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I don't have a picture from before I did the first aiming, so this was after the first aiming.

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And here's the current aiming status... right side is a degree or two off but I can deal with it. The bowing, I'd argue, is because the bulb isn't sitting properly and I might have to do more dremeling... not bad though.

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Oh, and I forgot to mention: I'm completely over this whole project, that's what I'm mostly flippant about it. No disrespect, at all. It just didn't go the way I expected to at first, and it just gets more and more frustrating lol.
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