Yeah, it’s the bracket Lightwerkz sells

Hmm I guess maybe some of the aftermarket ones have a different mounting pattern for the brackets? If it’s a real pita, I could probably reuse the backs on my OEM lights and harvest the lenses from an aftermarket set. How much work was it to make the brackets work? Which aftermarket did you use?

I think you might be right.

I am curious about the newer LED units as well, but leary of the fact that they are a single unit and if your LED ever goes out, the entire thing is shot and needs to be replaced... right? (save for dis-assembly and soldering in a new emitter). That makes me less inclined to run them considering you might shoot yourself in the foot long term, or at least set yourself up for some not so easy repairs down the road potentially. I would be more inclined to consider an LED specific projector that had a replaceable LED.

On the plus side, baking them open was surprisingly easy. I just reused the stock sealant to cram em back together, but leaving it on was a huge pita to fit some of the stuff back together. I’ll be much better prepared to do the actual retro now...I think lol.

Yeah that’s what I presumed about the mounting patterns, being different across the manufacturers. The Lighwerkz bracket may have been designed on true OEM so you may be good there. As far as the PITA of it that I had to modify it really wasn’t bad at all, just a little annoying.
My tip to you is watch Lightwerkz video on YouTube. He shows the most important step which really is lighting up the headlamp and marking on walls before you do anything to it. I messed up my first time and had to redo it.

It was good practice for sure.

My advice - despite appearances, junk most of the factory sealant and cram that recess with new when you do the lights for real. I thought the factory grey would be enough also... and then I had to pull them off the truck to re-open and re-seal them after the first time around. I used the black butyl rubber morimoto stuff and it worked well so far and solved my 'not quite sealed' condition.

Yeah, this is a good point, and one I did consider. It's a double edged sword here, the all-in-one simplicity of install vs having to break 'em back open once they do fail to change out the whole unit. An easily-replaceable LED unit is what I'd prefer as well...but if they last long enough to make it to the next technological advancement, this may be a moot point, as I'd probably be cracking 'em open again to shove in the latest and greatest anyway. I'm gonna have to dig into this one a bit more...looks like the LED they use is a Chinese one (HML-3 7545) - not sure about the quality/longevity on that one.

The other downside is that any/all LED proejctors out there are probably outside of my preferred color range and probably not high CRI.


I'm gonna go with the TYCs, which I believe are direct factory replicas - so we'll see once I get them open.

I'm guessing you mean mounting/aiming/lighting it all up before you permanently seal again? Good tip.

Oh 100%! I just crammed at all back because the water damage done to them in some areas was beyond salvaging. I plan on cleaning the crap out of whichever housing backs/lenses I decide to use - any tips for that? Seems like a heat gun on low and a lot of tedious peeling...doesn't sound fun. I plan on buying a roll of RetroRubber while I'm at it as well.

even if you use the aftermarket lights, you keep the stock internals and swap over if necessary, its good to use it for parts when certain parts break, you can also swap the lens over or shroud over. just take your time and do it right.
heres what s2000 projectors and 50w and cbb bulbs can do, camera is a google pixel 2 xl auto setting.

Nice! Good height on the purple shift too. Did they do any lense spacing/tuning for that specifically or a happy bi-product of your setup?

I still love my S2K retro I finished last year. I've been running crap bulbs and Lexus Denso 35w ballasts so might switch that up soon. At minimum, I'll get some CBB or night breakers.

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lightwerkz did the retrofit for me, clear lens was stock, only mod i did was the bulb spacer mod, which help make it a little brighter, i used a 16 gauge bare solid wire to make it space about 1mm at the bulb area. 2mm and you will loose intensity.

im at least 120+ feet from the loading dock.

I've seen someone retrofit G5-EXLS using those CB&D brackets, said he had to grind some of the inner shroud to for clearance.

Nice. Looking at the EXL beam pattern though, I kinda dislike all the foreground spill. The intensity is pretty incredible though.

I wonder how the Lightwerkz brackets compare to the CB&D. $55 for the CB&D vs $70 might tip the scales though haha.

The ones Lightwerkz sells are from CB&D, odd there's such a large difference in price.

I'm going to retro my parents' GX470 with EXLs in place of the projector highbeams, will be making foreground limiters for them.

Hmmm...that is strange.

Sounds awesome! How do the foreground limiters work. I'd been interested in following your build!