I finally drunk the kool aid and sprung for retrofits.
BX Built bi-LED kit, Apollo 2 shrouds, no other frills or rainbow sprinkles. Side note, BX has great customer service and a highly knowledgeable and engaged owner. I enjoyed doing business with them and they were super helpful. **3/7/23 Edit: shame that BX Built went out of business and screwed all the customers that were waiting for their retrofits. Also a bummer to know that if I have an issue with these I won't be able to warranty them
Previous setup was a basic headlight relay setup with Hella 100W bulbs in stock OEM housings. Better than stock lights but not that much better.
Started with some used OEM housings I bought on this forum. Using BX's guide I baked for about 20 min at 235F and the lenses pulled right off. I used a flat screwdriver to get it started but it hardly needed it.
TIP: Put the lens facing DOWN and pull the housing upward off of the lens. That way the extra butyl tape will hang downward and won't slop onto the chrome inside the housing... impossible to get it back off without taking the chrome plating with it.
I used a heat gun and small flat screwdriver to schlorp out the leftover butyl. Some of it was pretty crusty. That was by far the most tedious part of the process.
Install into the buckets
Projectors installed with the lock nut pretty tight but not all the way. Use the biggest (H4) adapter washer in the kit. There are two others you don't need for other types of housings.
Install on truck. Project onto a flat surface and rotate the projectors until the cutoffs are parallel and level. Great time for shadow puppets. Once they're level take them off and tighten down the lock ring.
Time to put the shrouds on. The projector has these 5 little receivers for snapfit tabs on the shrouds
BX says to put a little adhesive, so I put a dab of Hondabond in the receiver of each one. Snap the shroud into the place.
Chances are the force of install of the shrouds disrupted the leveling process from earlier. I'd suggest putting the shrouds on FIRST and then doing the leveling procedure.
Time to clean the housings and lenses before they get glued together. I found that the Sprayway glass cleaner worked great and did not take off the chrome. Where the butyl got on the housing I had to use some WD-40 which ended up taking the chrome with it. It's not that noticeable once it's all together, oh well.
The Morimoto RetroRubber in gray is a perfect match and worked well
The bead is pretty thick so I stretched it to about 1.5x its length before stuffing into the housing channel. I later learned even less would have done, so I suggest stretching to about 2x
Press the glass on while everything is cold and keep them squeezed together. These cheapo spring clamps from Harbor Freight worked great. I found if you took one vinyl sleeve off the metal end fit on the glass side very well.
Pop back in the oven at 235F for about 15-20 min. Morimoto says 270F but I went with BX's recommendation... lower temp is better.
Scrape the excess from where the clips go and pop the clips on. There was a good amount of squeezage both inside and outside -- a little too much butyl but not a problem.
Trim the excess butyl once it's cool or a little warm (too stick when hot) and reinstall into the buckets.
to be continued....