How-To - Angel Eyes - Pics

[raemhild]

As many of you have seen from the images we will be building our own set of Angel Eyes. Keep in mind that once, you have learned the techniques necessary to fabricate these, possibilities for lighting your vehicle in new and different ways will become virtually endless. This will be the third set of AE's I have made, and thus will have some very nifty shortcuts that weren't present in the DIY I followed. I will also be using a slightly more expensive approach in an effort to maintain a clean and factory look. I will try to take photos of the steps and items required to get you started on your own lighting adventure. Please read through this entire DIY before proceeding, and forward me any questions PRIOR to starting.

For starters, I will tell you that we will need the following:





Item: Size: Qty:



Acrylic Rod 1/2" - 3/8" 1 2'-3' dowel

License Plate Frame LEDs N/A 2 Packages

Red Wire 18/16* gauge 1 Spool ~20'

Black Wire 18/16* gauge 1 Spool ~20'

Wiring Harness - Male 2 Pronged 2

Wiring Harness - Female 2 Pronged 2

Splice Connectors 18/16* gauge 1 pckg ~10

Quick Connects 18/16* gauge 1 pckg ~10

Saw (Something capable of cutting the acrylic) Any (manual or electric) 1

Sand Paper Any (manual or electric) 1 - 2 sheets fine grain

Electrical Tape N/A 1 Roll

Heat Shrink 1/4" 4'

Spiral Wrap 3/8" 8'

Clear Adhesive (RTV Silicone) N/A 1 Tube

Wire Crimpers/Cutters N/A 1 Pair

Power Drill/Bit 3/16" 1

Measuring Tape/Ruler Any 1

Old Cookie Sheet Any 1

Oven Mits/Work Gloves N/A 1 Pair

Euro Switch for the Headlights N/A 1 Unit

A Morning/Afternoon of your time N/A ~2-4 hrs

* For safety purposes and cleanliness, try to be consistent in wiring size. I will be using 16 gauge for my DIY.




Now to get started with the fabrication. The first thing you have to do is to remove your headlights. This is done by opening the bonnet on the front of your vehicle and locating the housing assembly. Yes, this is a poor design, but we already know this. Push in the release button and lift the hook up in a clockwise motion for the driver side, and a counter-clockwise motion for the passenger side. This will slide the headlight out approximately a half of an inch. Pull the headlight out and disconnect the wiring harness.

Remove the lens of the headlight by loosening the clips (4) on the assembly. There are 2 levels of loosening. Set the lens aside, you don't need it until we reassemble the headlights. I decided to drill a hole through the chrome ceramic right underneath the low-beam lens of the headlight to feed the wires from the angel eyes. This is ceramic, so if you're not careful, you can chip away a lot of the chrome. Take your time and it will turn out OK. Rear view. Go ahead and measure the distance around the lens, I found it to be 6 and 1/2 of an inch.

Next you will want to drill a hole near the female connector for the factory headlight harness. You will later feed the wires from the eyes through this hole. At this point you can set the headlights aside, as we will be working with the acrylic rod, the license plate light kits and some of the electrical aspects of the build.

Grab your acrylic rod, and from one end, measure 6 and 1/2 of an inch, plus some, just to be safe. Mark this point off with a marker, you will be sawing/cutting/dremmeling here. Cut this length of acrylic, take your time, it can break if you apply too much pressure leaving your acrylic uneven. If this happens, just sand it flat. Take your 3/16" drill bit, center it on either end of the, now shortened acrylic, and drill it in approximately 5/8". Each piece should look like this.Test fit the LED.

Preheat your oven to about 350 degrees and spray a cookie sheet with some PAM. Once the oven is hot enough, place one eye on the pan and in the oven and let it warm up for a bit. I suggest using mechanics gloves to handle the acrylic, it will insulate your fingers, and give you full mobility of your hand for molding. After a few minutes, bring out the acrylic, and start to fit it to the area around the lens. You probably won't get it just right the first time, so set it back in the oven. You can tell when it is able to be shaped, it will start to straighten out of the horseshoe shape. Lather, rinse and repeat until you get it just right. Once the acrylic cools, sand the BACKSIDE of the eye (the side that will be adhered to the headlight assembly). This will make the light stand out better.

To remove the LEDs from the bolts in the packaging, simply push them out. If there is any glue holding them in, heat the bolt with a hair dryer. Place some of the RTV adhesive in the holes on either side of the eye and slide the LEDs inside. It will only take a few minutes for the adhesive to settle. Be sure to bend the leads from the LED towards the rear of the headlight assembly so they will fit snuggly into the hole created for the wires. Wrap the four wires from the LEDs in some heat shrink, and shrink it.

Combine the two negative(black) and positive(red) wires from the LEDs simply by twisting them. Feed the wires from the LEDs through the headlight assembly and out the hole next to the factory wiring harness. Place the negatives in one end of a splice connector and tighten. Repeat for the positive. Next color match the negative to the negative on the wiring harness and crimp them together. Finally, I wrapped mine tightly with electrical tape. Reassemble this headlight and repeat the process for the other. Go ahead and test it to make sure it looks good enough for you. You can do this by using a 9 volt, positive => positive; negative => negative and voila, illumination. Before you make anything tight, be sure to place the adhesive behind the eye and hold it in place for a minute or two.

Next take the headlight assemblies back out to the car and disconnect the battery. You need to pull out the driver side driving light (turn signal) on the bumper. Remove the plastic case around the connector and locate the white/black wire and the orange-ish brown wire. The white/black wire is going to be your positive lead, and will connect to the red wire. The orange-ish brown wire is the ground and will connect to the black wire. Take about 6' of each of the spools of wire (black and red) and wrap them with the spiral wrap.

Use a splice connector to connect the black/white wire and the red wire and another to connect the black to the orange-ish brown. Feed the wires up through the bumper and across the front of the hood area. Stuff the wires under the bumper in the engine bay, and feed the wires in front of the hood latch. On this end of the wires, on the passenger side of the car, you are going to use a splice connector on the positive of the wiring harness for the angel eyes. Repeat for the negative. Reconnect the battery, and turn on the driving light (half turn) on the headlight switch. If you have wired everything correctly, you should see your angel eye light up. If you do, disconnect your battery and use a quick connect to connect the wiring harness for the driver side head light to your wires that run across the front of the car. **NOTE** to keep the wires clear from debris, I heat shrink-ed the wiring harness from the wires going across the front of the car, and wrapped the connectors with electrical tape**END NOTE**

Once you get both of the headlights into position, reconnect the battery and test them once more by turning the headlight switch one half turn again. If both of your eyes illuminate, well done!!! If not, *sad face* read back over the DIY, and if you still can't find a reason they aren't working drop me an email.

Hopefully this DIY isn't terribly difficult to understand. Furthermore, I am sorry the pics aren't of the best quality, I couldn't find my digital camera, had to use the cell phone camera. If you have any questions about any of the things you read in the DIY, you can send me a PM or an email, and I will be happy to answer them for you. Good Luck and be careful.

***I am not responsible for anything that may go wrong with your vehicle during this DIY. Please proceed only if you feel efficient enough with electrical components. Following this DIY is done so at your own risk, be careful.***