By: Dr. Isotope
Lights used: Hella 2500's ($59.00+) available at Pep Boys, AutoZone or other stores.
Step one: Remove the bumper. There's a how-to over at Club Sol International that comes in pretty handy the first time you pull your bumper. After that, it's easy.
Step two: Remove thy stock aux. lights. They give no fight with the bumper off, only 2 10mm head bolts for each mounting bracket. Unclip the harness, and cut the annoying wire tie that holds the harness down.
Step three: Take the aux lights to a nice safe bench or the like, and remove the two screws that hold the light into the bracket. There's a pivot ball for the 3rd attach point, which I just yanked to get loose. You might break the plastic tab if you pull too hard (I did) so If you ever want to use the auxes again, be gentle.
Step four: Remove the 2500s from their U-shaped brackets. There's a hole in the top of the aux light bracket-- use a short bolt (about 3/8 long, I believe I used a regular old 1/4-20 carriage heads I had lying around) and a lock washer (spline type, if you have it) to mount the inner hole (toward the center of the car) of the new bracket to the stock bracket... and while that may sound confusing now, if you place your stock aux light bracket in place, and hold the new U bracket up to it, you'll see there's pretty much only one way for it to go.
Step Five: Tighten that bolt down good and hard-- you'll still be able to move the lamp if you push it hard, but the bumper really won't allow it. After it's tight, mount the 2500s with their included hardware.
Step Six: Leave the lights and head back to the car. You will have to run one hot wire from the battery to the relay for the 2500s-- the stock aux light circuitry just doesn't have the juice. Route that wherever you like, and leave enough slack wire to make working easier. I personally mounted the relay just beside the passenger side driving light, and zip tied the hell out of all the wires-- nice and tight.
Ground the relay to any of the myriad bolts right in that area-- the one that holds the headlight down works nice. For the main power switch (white wire), I used the stock aux light output: I removed the harness from the back of one stock light (snip snip) and put a bullet connector on the red wire; plug that to the white lead on the 2500 relay harness.
For the angel eyes (yellow lead) I just tapped the passenger side corner hot wire; I use a Stripmaster type stripper-- you can just "push" a bit of the wire jacket away, leaving about 1/4" of exposed wire. Run the yellow wire through the hole to the corner lamp, twist about 3/4" around the exposed corner hot wire, add a drop of solder and a bit of electrical tape (or heat shrink, if you're finicky like I am) and that's it for the wiring.
Recap? Sure.
Red: straight to battery.
Black: ground to headlight mounting bolt.
White: to stock aux light hot.
Yellow: to corner lamp hot.
Step seven: Mount the lamps. Before you can do so, you will need to take a cutting source ( I used a 4.5" angle grinder, but a die grinder or air saw will work) too cut a little wedge in the metal panel that holds the aux light bracket; I'd have to remove my bumper to get a pic, but I'll explain it as best I can:
Where the U bracket mounts to the stock bracket, it hits the flat metal that holds the hood latch and the sticker that says (Made in Japan)... if you look closely, you can see where they bind against each other. The amount you need to grind out is minimal-- about 4-5mm.
Test fit the lights until they will sit straight. careful not
to tighten them down too-too tight, and hook up their hots and grounds to the
harness plugs. It's tough to mess up-- everything is color coordinated. At
this point, you can check to see if they work. The parking lights should power
up the angel eyes, and the aux light switch should fire the main driving lamps.
Zip tie the hell out of the wires (through the holes in the bumper bar) and
try to make it look fairly neat and tidy. Sit back and have a nice cool drink.
Because that was the easy part.
Step eight: Fitting the bumper. Stock aux lights are oblong-- slightly wider than they are tall. The 2500s are completely round. You will have to grind away material from the inside top of the aux light hole, a bit at a time, testing and retesting the fit. Imagine the aux light is a clock, and you only need to remove material between about 10 and 2 o'clock-- the rest clears fine. You'll have good amount of ground-up plastic lying around when you're done. I used my trusty Ryobi mototool, with a 1/4 steel cutter, a 1/8 laminate cutter, and a 3/8 medium sanding drum for finishing work.
You need to run the first cuts with the tool wide open, max RPMs-- use very light pressure, taking small amounts on each pass-- press too hard, and the tool bogs, and the plastic melts. :huh: You'll know you've removed enough when the bumper starts to sit back down in it's original position; with no grinding, you can see exactly where the lights bind. Don't worry, when you're done, you won't be able to tell from the outside.
When you get the holes just right, crank the bracket bolts down to full tight (the bumper should have pushed them into the position it wants them in).
Step nine: Remount your bumper, and begin the light aiming process... park in front of a wall, and try your mightiest to get the aux lights to aim just below and inside the pattern of your headlights. The fit is tight... it won't come easy. I still haven't gotten my driver's side lamp right. <_<
Step ten: Impress the hell out of people with you suave lights and your obvious mechanical skill. B)