I finally got with the times and installed Bi-LED projectors from a company named BX Built. I just purchased the projector kit only, not the ready-to-bolt on kit that seems to be taking the company a long time to get out. Anyways, I found this mod very worthwhile as my vision ain't what it used to be. I didn't opt to paint the inner housing nor did I buy the angel eyes. I may be Asian, but I don't like my truck to look ricey.
TOOLS
Paper towels
Philips and flat bladed screwdrivers (width of housing channel)
Curved pliers
Plastic door panel separator
10mm deep socket w/ 12” extension + ratchet wrench
3/8” extension
Long ass flat bladed screwdriver
Pliers for clip removal
Blue painter’s tape / tape measurer
Electric drill (not impact)
Electrical tape
Zip ties
Utility blades with extra blades
Baggies
Baking tray and aluminum foil
Butyl (made for headlamps)
Old oven mitts or work gloves
THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP YOU’RE NOT EVEN THINKING ABOUT
Yes, do this before you even work on anything else. Trust me on this, I should’ve done this too in retrospect. Park 25 feet away and position your truck as perpendicular to a wall or garage door as possible. 10 feet is acceptable too. Cover one light with a dark towel and then take a piece of blue tape and mark the exact dead center of your light and the top of the beam (low beam). Repeat this process for the other side. Mark the high beams too. This will invariably speed up the process of aiming the lights after you’ve done the retrofit work. One caveat: this assumes your lights were/are perfectly set up.
GRILL and HEADLAMP TRIM REMOVAL
There are a total of 7 black clips that are attached to the ends of your grill, which attach to the holes in the front part of the engine bay body. The best way to remove the clips without breaking them is to take a flat bladed screwdriver, lift up the tab, and pull the grill away. The other way is to pinch down on both the top and bottom of the clip and pull the grill away. It is much easier though to lift up the *single* black fastener from the side and pull the grill away from it. After removing the grill, make sure to collect all 7 black clips that should be remaining in the engine bay body and/or still in the grill ends. Re-fasten them into the grill ends.
For the headlamp trim under the headlights, this one is much easier. Take your ratchet wrench with 10mm deep socket and remove the 10mm screw bolt on the interior side. For my 1998 4Runner, the driver’s side had this plastic piece that hooked onto a piece on the fender quarter panel. No need to remove it, just take the whole trim piece off with it. As for the passenger side trim, that one had just a rectangular hole and the quarter panel trim had a protrusion that accommodated the headlight trim. Make sure to fasten the 10mm screw back into the lower headlamp body so you don’t lose those two screw bolts (2)
SIDE MARKERS REMOVAL
Remove the single Philip head screw at the top of the marker end inside the engine bay. Set aside for now but don’t forget to screw it back in. Pop out by hitting the rear side of marker in a forward direction. It should pop out. Unplug the harnesses and set aside markers. Partially screw the philips head screw back in for safe keeping.
HEADLAMPS REMOVAL
Remove the headlamps by unbolting the 2 x 10mm side nuts and 2 bolts (10mm for all; deep socket w/ 12” extension). My preference is to remove the out of sight bolt underneath the headlamp first because the housing is still solidly affixed to the body, thus less room for vibration or other funny moves that might knock the 10mm bolt when pulling it out. Once you remove the entire light assembly, put it in a safe place. Hand-tighten the hardware back half way into the body.
Disconnect the H4 harnesses (H4 is a brown square shaped plug in my 98 4Runner). Remember to always pull the plug and not not wires). After pulling apart the H4 harness from the stock projector male H4 plug, set the headlamps away in a safe place. Note: the right passenger side H4 won’t be utilized again, so my advice is to clean it and cover it up with some electrical tape given its location next to the windshield wiper fluid fill spout.
REMOVING REAR BLACK HOUSING
Have your phone’s camera ready to take pics of what you’re removing and especially the height of the threads in relation to the top of the beam adjustment nuts. If you have a drill w/ a 10mm socket, now's the time to use it for these adjustment nuts as they will take some time to remove all 4. This is especially important so do it because it'll save you a ton of time adjusting the beams. After taking photos of the thread height, take your drill w/ 10mm deep socket to tighten (clockwise) the horizontal adjustment nut. This is the nut on the side of the spring. What this will do is relax the spring. Do the opposite on the other adjustment nut by turning the nut counter-clockwise, which will raise the other end. Once those two steps have been done, take your right-angle plier and lift off the spring.
Next, there’s a box-shaped clip/bushing that has to be pinched to unclip it from the rear headlamp housing. I used the same methodology to move the housing so that there wasn’t tension on the clip’s fastener. This one was a little bit of a pain. See the close up pic because its not that obvious until you see the close up.
Once done, completely unscrew the adjustment nuts off. Set aside and repeat for the other housing.
REMOVE PARTS FROM GREY HEADLIGHT HOUSING
Again take a photo of the back of the housing so that you have a reference for the orientation of the hoses when you put everything back together.
Begin by removing the black rubber protective cover. Unclip the H4 bulb clip and remove the bulb. I keep everything, so I set aside these parts. Remove the bulb clip’s small screws. I re-fastened them back after removing the clip for safe keeping.
Next, unscrew the screws that retain the bulb reflector. After unscrewing, pinch the arms inward and allow the bulb reflector to drop into the housing. Re-affix the small screws for safe keeping.
Repeat for the other grey housing.
Remove the hoses by just pulling them off. Unbolt the adjustment bolts by removing each pair of screws. Note: the bolts are identical in height, but the bases are different shape so that you can’t re-fasten one incorrectly. If you’re super anal, match mark them with some sort of pen. I placed these parts and the hoses into a baggie. Last thing to remove is the square clip from the back of the metal pivot mount. All you have to do is gently widen them and it’ll easily slip off. Put these in the baggie as well.
GLASS REMOVAL AND BUTYL REMOVAL
Pro tip: Clear a large workspace. Sorry no pics for this step.
Begin by unclipping the 4 metal retaining clips with a flat bladed screw driver by gently prying them off. Put them into the baggie for safe keeping. Repeat for the other headlamp housing.
Begin by placing the aluminum foil and your headlamps on your baking sheet. While there’s a lot of advice on the internet and from companies about the right temperature and time, it seemed that most were around 230F – 240F for 20 minutes, so I did 240F for 20 mins and that temp/time worked for me. Once the time expires, remove the headlamps and immediately start to remove the glass from the headlamp. I first used a very thin bladed screwdriver and then moved up to plastic door panel tools. It wasn’t very tough to separate.
I decided to remove as much of the old adhesive as possible and use fresh butyl sealant. This was the most frustrating part of this mod. After removing the glass, take a flat blade screwdriver and push out the butyl. I put on some old oven mitts and used a flat bladed to push out as much butyl as fast as possible out of the channels. Here's where fresh paper towels are invaluable. It’s a messy and tedious job as I had to put the first housing in and out of the oven at least 3-4 times. I think it took me 2 days to get 98% of it all out off the glass and out of the headlamp housing.
In the end after finishing the 1st one, I ended up using a heat gun which was a lot easier but trickier because you don't want to melt the housing. So be forewarned.
INSTALL PROJECTOR BULBS W/ SILICONE GASKET, LOCK RING, AND BUTTERFLY NUT
OK, this is the easiest part but pay attention to which way the fan on the projector bulb is oriented. The fan must be facing downwards. Else your low beam will be your high beam and your high beam will be your fog lights. Place the silicon gasket through the projector's threaded shaft (note orientation of gasket) and put the threaded end through the headlamp housing. Next, put a 3 star shaped ring through the threaded end and secure with the butter fly nut. Tighten about 90%.
PARTIALLY REBUILD HEADLAMPS AND MOUNT
Do not attach the glass just yet. Follow the steps above to re-attach the grey and black housings. I don't recommend that you put on the 2 sets of hoses until the very, very end (after aiming the headlights).
Some tips:
- The long adjustment bolt's black lower mount with the two screw holes (2 per side) are side specific.
- Don't forget to put on the black square bushing onto the ball end pivot point on the grey housing before working on the black housing
- Do not put on the hoses as you'll need to re-bake the whole thing again when applying the butyl
- When putting on the black housing, start with the spring first. It'll save you a lot of headache. Move onto pushing the black housing onto the black square bushing.
- When screwing on the adjustment nuts, go back to the pictures I advised you to take of the remaining thread for each nut. This will save you from a ton of headache while adjusting the top horizontal nuts. If you have a drill w/ a 10mm socket, now's the time to use it for these adjustment nuts as they will take some time.
HARNESS ASSEMBLY, WIRE ROUTING, and POS/NEGATIVE WIRING
The harness comes in two parts. Connect them together. It should be very obvious and mechanically the two male/female connectors that adjoin both harnesses can only fit into each other. Next, mechanically attach the ballasts and control unit somewhere in a safe location. For now I used zip ties but when I find more time, I'll build a mount or use self-tapping metal screws. Try to place them underneath the lip of the body so as to prevent any water damage.
I ran the long harness cable in front of the coolant reservoir. I had to unbolt the battery box bar (12 mm socket) to run it underneath and in front of the coolant reservoir. I then ran the harness right in front the the existing loomed wire bundle in front of the radiator. I secured this w/ 3 zip ties.
Finish by wiring up the positive 12 volt wiring to a point on your battery's positive connection and two grounds. Make sure to use like a dremel tool to take the paint off as shown in the picture. The manufacturer says this is a common failure point for poor installs.
AIMING THE HEADLIGHTS
If you followed my very first step above, this should be very easy. Adjusting the nuts are as follows:
Vertical beam adjustment nuts are very easy to access for both sides. I just used a long 10mm ratchet socket by hand to adjust them. Turning clockwise will lower the beam. Counter-clockwise will raise them. Raise or lower them no more than 4 inches. Driver's side must be lower than passenger according to law and the law of not being a jerk to oncoming drivers at night.
Horizontal (left / right) adjustment lights are much trickier, esp on the passenger side. For the driver's side, you can access the adjustment nut with a 10mm ratcheting socket wrench. For the passenger side top horizontal adjustment nut, DO NOT USE A SCREWDRIVER from the top access hole like some of these idiots I read on the other forums and YT who are giving this crappy advice. I could care less about what the manual says too because these plastic nuts are very difficult to turn and using a screwdriver to turn these plastic gears are sure to shear them off. And some of these boneheads are lamenting about their gears are stripped. Use the same 10mm ratcheting wrench but approach it from the side. It'll take a lot of time as you can't turn the wrench much due to space limitations, but you'll get there.
This was the 2nd most tedious task of this retrofit.
RE-SEAL GLASS W/ NEW BUYTL AND CLAMP/CLOSE FIRM
Once you're beam heights are at the right height, tighten the hell out of that butterfly locking ring and make minor adjustments if they turned a little when you tightened down the locking ring. Remove the headlight assemblies.
Apply the butyl in the channel and press it down into the channels. Since I removed all of the old butyl, I was able to lay down the roll of butyl without stretching it thin like some Youtubers do. This is the advantage of removing all the old butyl else you have to heat up the butyl to soften it, the slightly stretch it while laying it down so as to NOT have too much butyl. Trust me on this. And there's more than enough butyl in the Morimoto roll of butyl that I bought.
Re-bake the assemblies at 240F for 10-15 mins. I didn't have any adverse effects of baking the projectors, as much as I worried about it. When you remove the assemblies, the butyl should be very soft and gooey. Press in the glass and press them together w/ your hands. Push on the 4 clips for each assembly. If you're able to manage to clamp the now-assembled lights together, do so for added insurance. But I just pressed them together by hand without any ill effect and its a solid seal.
Once cooled off, re-attach the rubber hoses. You'll need your pliers to do so. It may be tricky, but easy enough to do as the hoses are very pliable and soft.
Note: instead of using grey butyl, I used black. Black looks so much better as it matches the black seal on the side markers. I used Morimoto brand butyl that I found on Amazon.
Some reference links on aiming headlights and the butyl that I bought:
FINAL STEPS
Re-install the headlamps by first attach attaching the harnesses and then bolting down the headlamp assemblies. Pro-tip on the driver's side: before completely tightening down the driver's side, push the lower trim's plastic hook on as doing so after fully tightening down the lamp assemblies will be difficult. After tightening down the lamp assemblies, take one last look at the light heights and adjust if needed.
Clip the black retaining clips onto the grill ends themselves and push the grill onto the inner body hole mounts (Fun fact: this is the original Satoshi grill that started it all). Finish by attaching the side marker harnesses and screwing in the attachment point at the top. Now you're done, so wait a few hours and take a night time drive in a dark area. If people are flashing you, then try adjusting the lower adjustment nuts (turning clockwise) to lower the beams.
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