Fog Lights (LED)
February 22 2016
For the past few years, I have been thinking of how to get an LED light in place of the OE fog lights. I currently have Piaa 510 SMR lights in place of the OE fogs, and have HID H3 bulbs
in them. Wanting not to be "that guy" and his glaring lights anymore, I resurrected my search for LED fogs. I was looking at some Rigid Industries SAE D-Series lights and their OE mounting
brackets, but the amount of modifying turned me off. Further searching online found me the Morimoto XB LED fog lights at The Retro Fit Source. They met all my requirements, so I ordered
them up. The plan is to do the same as with the Piaa lights, and modify the OE housing and join with the Morimoto light. Here is how it went down.....
Gift from the postman.
They are OE replacement for the 2010 Pontiac G6 and 2008-2009 G8.
A little dark for my liking. From what I saw online, they do look lighter in natural light.
Powered up.
Polycarb lens
Aluminum housing
1200 lumen
5500 Kelvin
The beam pattern.
Now I have to get to the junkyard to get some OE fog lights.
Went to Pick-A-Part and got some fog lights and a few other parts.
Stock fog light.
Cut away the lens with a dremel and cutting disc.
Both lenses removed.
Remove the halogen shields, then clean up what is left of the lenses. I chose
to leave the edge of the lens as it was easier to get a true edge this way.
August 7/2016
The LED light.
Remove the screws, mounting piece and the plug.
I chose to cut off the three mounts on each light, but I'm almost sure that you don't need to.
Apply your choice of adhesive to the back edgeof the LED light and the inside edge of the
OE light. I put masking tape on the OE light to get a clean edge when the glue was dried.
Connect the base of an old 880 bulb to the wires of the LED light.
Nice and clean and a factory plug.
All done.
Final test before going in the car.
August 14/2016
My plan for now is to keep the existing aftermarket wiring harness in play with the new LED lights, so I will unplug the harness at the ballast (9006 plug), and make a wiring harness to connect to the LED lights (880 plug).....
Back to the parts from Pick-A-Part for the 880 bulb connectors.
880 connectors on one end.
To make the 9006 plug, I got some burnt out 9006 bulbs.
Remove the tab and cut the base.
Wiggle the two pieces until the wires break.
August 27/2016
Continuing on with the wiring harness.....
Wires soldered and shrinked to the 9006 plug.
Hot glue surrounding the wires to give support.
Harness done; 9006 to 880.
I am going to install just the left light, as I want to see the difference between the LED and HID lights.
I swapped the mounting bracket from my current lights.
Hmmm. That doesn't look level.
Quite a difference visually compaired to the right side.
Had to run some errands, so I stopped in at a local underground parking lot to check out the LED in the dark.
My headlights and HID foglight are 5000 kelvin, and the LED foglight is 5500 kelvin.
The LED beam is definatley not level.
Big difference in the beam patterns.
Just the right side HID.
Just the left side LED.
August 28/2016
Some night pictures from last night.....
Headlights and foglights.
Foglights.
Headlights and foglights.
Foglights.
No lights.
Different heights to show the glare.
August 29/2016
So far I'm not overly impressed with the LED output, but figure I might as weel continue on and get the right side installed and see how they look.....
Random "almost dark out" shots.
Foregound output.
Fogs.
Fogs and low beams.
Fogs and hi beams.
Fogs and low beams.
Fogs.
Fogs and low beams.
Fogs.
I have to admit that these lights are growing on me. The output isn't what I am used to, but I like the sharp cut-off, no ballast to warm up and they pretty look cool.
Fogs.