GenLex

Hello, I am a new owner of a 2001 LX470. The previous owner had installed the CCFL Halo headlight assembly with HID Xenon lights and one of them was burned out. He gave me the link on ebay where to buy the replacement. They were the Xentec 35w Xenon HID KIT H1 5000K OEM Low Beam Headlight Conversion Light. The one that did work was a little on the blue side, and since I wasn't a fan of the blue, I decided to go with a little different light and get the white. I ended up buying the XENTEC H1 4300K HID Conversion Kit (Soft White). The controller box looked a little different, but I plugged them in the way the directions noted... I plugged the factory wiring harness into the controller box, then plugged the HID bulb into the controller box, and installed the H1 bulb into the CCFL housing Halo housing. Put the battery back in and turned the lights on. They were very dim. Pulled out of the garage and started to go down the street and couldn't see a thing! Did I plug them in wrong? Or are the lights bad? They are both even light distribution, but they are extremely dim, and you can see some sort of shadow on them. Did I just put them into the CCFL housing with the wrong side up? Another thing to mention, the previous owner had both the fog lights out... not sure if this has something to do with it. I'm, pretty mechanically enclined, but this one has me stumped. I've been troubleshooting this for a week now, with no success. It's a real pain because It's the new family car and we can't drive it at night. The HID brights work great. No issues. it's just the low beams I'm trying to replace.
Thanks for any help.

GenLex

I think I figured out the issue... The HID's were fine, very bright, but when I put them in the projector housing, they didn't project any light. When messing around with the lights I pulled the HID’s out of the projector while they were lit, and all of a sudden the light projection out of the projector got extremely bright. The problem was that the light was too far in the projector lamp. It was also loose because there was too much room between the mounting surface of the projector, the mounting base of the light and the retainer clip. So, I took some washers and put them in between the lights base and the mounting surface of the projector lamp to hold the HID back so it doesn’t go into the projector as far. This made the projectors project the light much better, and it also allow the back of the light base to fit snuggly against the retaining clip so the light is tightly held in place. Worked like a charm, and now I have plenty of light output. I tried to attach a diagram picture, hope it uploaded...

ThChinaman

I've had HID kits before (Not H1 or H7) that came with a black spacer-like piece but have never used it. It looks something like the piece posted below. Did your kit come with one?

http://www.ddmtuning.com/Products/H7-Spacer

GenLex

No, it didn't come with any spacers. That would have been handy. I first had washers in there, but was checking the heat because the metal transfers a lot of heat, and the back of the lights were extremely warm, so I fabbed up some new spacers from aluminum tube because aluminum doesn't trasfer heat as much as steel. They are similar to the parts in your link. After running them for about 20 minutes on a drive to the store, I checked them and they didn't transfer the heat nearly as much, the back of the lights were much cooler. The light output has been so much better wtih the spacer in there. Thanks for your reply to show me that some of these HID's require these and I'm not completely out of left field with this idea.