A.Wilson013
New member
First off: I apologize for image quality. My camera is dead, and the cellphone is just not up to snuff, haha...
Well, last week a friend of mine asked me if I'd be willing to do a retrofit for his client's, "4th gen 4Runner".
I agreed, without doing a bit of research. (Stupid)
After parts were ordered, I decided to hop on the forum and do some searching. What I found was that most folks do the H1, retroquik, or some other option. I found very few users doing the D2S, and those that were doing it were having quite a few problems getting the seals for the headlight to fit. My heart sank.
Knowing my buddy's clients would expect perfection, I went to the drawing board.
The first thing I noticed was that the threaded portion of the projector was WAY too wide to fit through the factory bulb location.
So, first step was to bore the hole out: (In this shot you can also see that I bored out the bolt hole for the factory reflector to be large enough to pass the high/low wires through. This will be sealed with silicone.)
After that, it was time for a test fit: (Still dusty from the dremel work.)
This initial fitment taught me that in order to have enough threads at the rear I would have to "neck" down the housing about 1/4". So, I did that.
It ALSO taught me that the bullet shrouds will fit without even coming close to needing trimmed up.
Here's an image showing how much of the housing is left after "necking" down about 1/4".
With all of that done, I decided to see what I could do about the seal. I found that since I had left that 1/4" or so below the nut, the seal had no issues fitting right around it, as it's meant to.
Next, I wanted to see if the D2S plug would fit as I had read so many times that it would not:
Yep! All sorts of clearance. For kicks, I maxed out both adjustments every which way and it never contacted the housing.
My next step is to do the other side (shouldn't take more than an hour now that all the testing is done) and then throw them on the vehicle, adjust the cutoff to be perfectly level, use apply some JB Weld, and call it a day!
Until then, here she is:
Well, last week a friend of mine asked me if I'd be willing to do a retrofit for his client's, "4th gen 4Runner".
I agreed, without doing a bit of research. (Stupid)
After parts were ordered, I decided to hop on the forum and do some searching. What I found was that most folks do the H1, retroquik, or some other option. I found very few users doing the D2S, and those that were doing it were having quite a few problems getting the seals for the headlight to fit. My heart sank.
Knowing my buddy's clients would expect perfection, I went to the drawing board.
The first thing I noticed was that the threaded portion of the projector was WAY too wide to fit through the factory bulb location.
So, first step was to bore the hole out: (In this shot you can also see that I bored out the bolt hole for the factory reflector to be large enough to pass the high/low wires through. This will be sealed with silicone.)
After that, it was time for a test fit: (Still dusty from the dremel work.)
This initial fitment taught me that in order to have enough threads at the rear I would have to "neck" down the housing about 1/4". So, I did that.
It ALSO taught me that the bullet shrouds will fit without even coming close to needing trimmed up.
Here's an image showing how much of the housing is left after "necking" down about 1/4".
With all of that done, I decided to see what I could do about the seal. I found that since I had left that 1/4" or so below the nut, the seal had no issues fitting right around it, as it's meant to.
Next, I wanted to see if the D2S plug would fit as I had read so many times that it would not:
Yep! All sorts of clearance. For kicks, I maxed out both adjustments every which way and it never contacted the housing.
My next step is to do the other side (shouldn't take more than an hour now that all the testing is done) and then throw them on the vehicle, adjust the cutoff to be perfectly level, use apply some JB Weld, and call it a day!
Until then, here she is:
