Tuesday, September 10, 2013 - 12:30 pm, by: Hays Sleiman(Hays1530)
Hey guys,
bit of a weird one...I felt like upgrading my HIDs to something a bit stronger and decided to stick to the stock headlights instead of those Ebay ones.
The thing is, when I put the HIDs in I get a rectangular shadow at the bottom of the light beam (Closer to the car). Like this...Excuse my •••••• Photoshop skills, It's just a rough idea...
This thing has been driving me crazy for ages! Today, I decided to pull the headlight apart to investigate...turns out it's literally just a piece of plastic that site in between the bulb and the lens.
Here is this plastic rectangle thing from in front of the headlight:
From behind looking in where the bulb sits:
The first point I should make is that this doesn't seem to cause a shadow with the normal non-HID light bulbs for some reason (They're pretty weak so maybe I just don't notice it).
Second point is that all the ebay headlights which seem to project a stronger beam of light don't have it.
Third point is that I don't think I'm putting the HID in upside down or anything because when I flip it around barely no light gets through. And I'm pretty sure the white strip on them is supposed to be on the bottom. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm sure there's a reason for it as all the stock soarer headlights have it, but what's the point of it? Can I just remove it?
Friday, September 13, 2013 - 08:19 pm, by: Joe Trojan(Jttt)
I had a look at mine today. My guess is they are there to stop too much light being thrown on the road too close to the driver. I hope the squares aren't too bad as I'm putting HID's in mine right now ane removing the squares look like a lot of work.
Sunday, September 15, 2013 - 07:23 pm, by: Nathan Sopeer(Nathan_s)
I have HID's in mine and did notice that I have the tabs just like you. I do not have the strange shadow though. You said that when you turn it around, barely any light gets through, I did that with mine and noticed no difference between the two positions. You didn't by any chance accidentally buy a hi/low combo did you?
Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - 08:40 am, by: Joe Trojan(Jttt)
I got 4 of these kits in, one kit on low beams, one kit on high beams, 3rd running H3 bulbs on fogs, 4th kit for spares:
The bulb shown is a 9006 from one of the kits compared to a normal 9005 (I bought in 9005 and 9006 to trial fit, only 9005 bulbs fit in both my hi and low beams) the 9005 bulbs are the same with a smaller diameter boss where the o-ring seal sits. I have made effort to index the brown return wire so that they have the least effect on the light pattern, in the case of the low beams, I have them indexed to the bottom:
The quality of these kits isn't the best. Mixing and matching ballasts and bulbs was required to get consistent light temperature across the multiple kits/bulbs I bought in. The wiring seems to be good quality though.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - 01:40 pm, by: Joe Trojan(Jttt)
I'm saying the 9006 do not fit in mine. Both my hi and low only accept 9005. (I only bought in 9006 to try them out and threw them in the bin).
In the case of these bulbs the 9006 and 9005 (along with the other H3 and H1 bulbs for aftermarket lights) are all identical including light output apart from the mounting base (9006/9005/H1/H3 are all physically different).
I havn't tried a 9012 so can't comment.
Post some pics up of your bulbs that create the black squares.
Thursday, September 19, 2013 - 09:20 am, by: Vinh Bui(Hyudsjk)
Hays, 9006 denotes the actual tabs on the base of the bulb, not the light output. I'd say the main cause of your problem here is that you've probably purchased the wrong bulb size so the bulbs aren't locked in properly in your headlight housing. One of the tabs is probably not locked in at all so it's caused the bulb to point towards the plastic rectangle in the below picture, causing the shadow to appear. It would also explain why you're getting little to no light output when you flip the bulb:
Here's a picture I nicked from Google images which illustrates the difference between a 9006 and 9005 bulb:
The bulb on the left is a 9006 bulb, the bulb on the right is a 9005 bulb. Notice how the position of the top tab is different?
With that being said, your low beam is most likely a 9005J bulb. The difference between regular 9005 bulbs and 9005J's is again the top tab. 9005's generally fit with some slight trimming but 9005J's are direct drop ins for almost all Soarers. Apparently there were some Soarers which had their low beams converted to 9006 when they were complied but I haven't really seen anyone verify this. Here's a good picture for your reference:
If you really need to check, just take out your old halogen bulb and verify the position of the tabs with the pictures above. You'll most likely find that your old bulb was a 9005J bulb so you'll need to swap your HID kit with a 9005 one at the very least. From there you can modify the top tab (if required) to get it to fit perfectly in the headlight housing.
Thursday, September 19, 2013 - 11:08 pm, by: Hays Sleiman(Hays1530)
Hi Vinh, thanks a lot for that explanation! now it's all coming together...Okay, so no I don't have 9005 nor 9006...I have some other HID kit kind that I got from Autobahn (6000k 55w).
The bulb tab looks nothing like that and doesn't fit in to the Soarer headlight, it fits in perfectly to the ebay aftermarket ones though! Looks like this...
I'm still abit confused, I've just had a look at the ebay kits and they say 9005 is the "bulb size" and the bulb tab seems to be the same as the above pic...so how do I find the right tab?
Right now, I've just got this kit held in the headlight with extra rubber to tighten it's position as the tab is wrong obviously but would that explain why I get the weird shadow?
Here's a picture of the shadow with only driver side headlight on:
Friday, September 20, 2013 - 01:22 pm, by: Vinh Bui(Hyudsjk)
Aftermarket headlights tend to use different sized bulbs. The bulb you posted above won't fit in the stock Soarer headlight so you'll need to replace them with 9005 bulbs.
Like I said in my other post, the ideal bulb size you want is 9005J but 9005's will fit fine with little to no trimming of the tabs.
Saturday, September 21, 2013 - 08:46 pm, by: Nathan Sopeer(Nathan_s)
Yeah, it looks like the light source is too far back in the headlight, I wouldn't remove the tab, they wouldn't be there if not needed. Just get another set.
Previous
