Fitting HID lights

Following on from the purchase thread for HID lights, this thread will cover how I fitted them to my car. To start the ball rolling I have taken some pictures of what is in the box and laid it out on the floor to show how the bits go together......

When you unravel the wiring loom you will see that there are two ends to the system. Note one end has a three spade connector as well as the connections to the bulb unit. This three spade connector plugs into your existing bulb connector so that the light switches on your dash control the new system. You only have this on one side of the car. Other things to note in these two pictures are that the bulbs are still in their protective covers and I have connected the parts together. They are simple push and click lock on type connectors.

In case you want to read the writing on the parts I hope you can see the words in these two pictures. The second picture is of the pair of relays which I will refer to next.

Being a Bi Xenon kit you need to provide an additional source of power. This is quite simple to deal with. Firstly there is an earth which is the black lead which needs fixing to the chassis somehow. Either use a nearby chassis member or take it back to your communal earthing point if that is how you chose to wire your car.

The red wire is the positive feed and as supplied I would suspect the cable needs modification! I plan to extend the cable with appropriately rated red cable so that I can run the cable to the back of my second electrical cut out ie the one inside my car. My power lead from the battery goes to my external electrical cut out first, then my internal one and then to the starter motor. If I used the first electrical cut out as the source of the positive feed then if I cut the power from the inside only it could leave the lighting circuit live which defeats the point of the electrical cut out! I am not an electrical engineer (or indeed any form of engineer!) - choose your source of power with care, use proper cable and if in doubt ask a competent person (NOT ME!). The little components in the red cable are built in fuses. The other components you can see are the two relays shown above which need fixing down to hold them steady.

Fix the booster packs down. I intend to fix them inside the headlight box on my GTD, bolting to the side through the fibre glass. I most likely will cable tie the wiring loom to the hinge bar holding the front clip on (maybe no good if you have a quick release front clip!) making sure the wires can't get chaffed. Also plan to use grommets to seal up the holes I make into the headlight boxes.

So now in theory the boosters and relays are fixed down, the wiring loom connected and tied on, so it just remains to replace your existing H4 bulbs with the Bi Xenon ones, make the final connections and check to see if it all works as it should!

I say in theory as I have yet to do this to my car. Currently my Red Top 60 battery is dead and is having a post mortem examination at DMS Technologies to see why. I hope to have it (or a new one) back in about a week or so and then will be able to put the above into practice.

Of course, in the mean time, if anyone spots any erros in what I have said, or has any other suggestions please do post your thoughts here.

Just to say this thread is not a dead duck but should hopefully be moving on soon as I have now sorted my alternator issue so am happy to actually fit the lights to my car now to act as a test bed as previously stated in the bulk buy thread some while back. But having fitted a set to my Vito van when I first got them, they are jolly brilliant!