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Thursday, 11 July 2013

LED Side Light Bulbs and DRL's

Wah! It has been a busy time for the girl and myself. Car shows piling on top of car shows it's all I can do to keep up. Met loads of people, did some work, upset some Welsh princess and generally had a good car time. Even if some bit's of that 'car time' were less than enjoyable!

One of those less enjoyable moments happened when changing the side light bulb. I have been working on the headlights, changing them over to High Intensity Discharge on dipped beam. The dark tint being removed for a much lighter shade of film protection and lastly to change the sidelights for something with a little more 'oomf' (technical term).

Replacement LED's
So, I had already replaced the sidelights for a much better LED (shown on right of picture) but now I have explored the LED world (as it were) I thought I would try something different again.
The side lights are somewhat awkward to get at generally, although the opposite side to the fuse box isn't so bad and I thought I would just pop a bulb in to see how it looked. Well after fiddling about trying to get the bulb in, it fell out of its holder and into the lens! Oh my... I tried fishing with wire, sticky tape on a stick, you name it. But it soon became apparent that the only way I would get the darn thing out would be to remove the headlight unit. This in itself is not too bad apart from one really stupid bolt located on the inner wing, what were Nissan thinking of and did they do this deliberately just to spite me??
Anyway after much 'MUCH' battling, the headlight gave in and off she popped. The irony is that as I removed it the bulb dropped straight out, bounced off my foot and under the car. I swear it giggled at me.

With the headlight removed I was impressed at how much space it offered me. Seemed a shame to just put it back together as was, so (not being too bright) I thought a set of Daylight Running Lights would do the trick and these were wired in and hidden away behind the headlight.

DRL's fitted
As for my pesky side lights. I used a little electrical tape to secure them to their holders and fitted them in. Naturally the drivers side is a complete pain to do, as you have to remove the expansion tank, move the water bottle and the fuse box to get 'proper access.

So a five minute job, took at least six hours. We do it for love, I swear (and sweat). 

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