My FX-R Projector Retrofit Thread

[bmwman91]

Then cut up trashed smileys. As the OP said at some point in this thread, often times the reflective coating on the inside deteriorates and causes bad light output.

Or in my case on my e34, the previous owner already hacked my smileys all to hell, so...

Yup, at this point paying more than $100 for a set of 20+ year old smiley's is just silly. The reflective coating in these things is shot to hell. Even "new" ones that are still in the box might be sort of crappy if they have been sitting for a decade or more. I am not sure when Hella/Bosch stopped making these units, but I am sure that they don't anymore.

Question...anyone got a connection at a machine shop that they could give me a deal on some work? The ancient DRO's on my mill bit the dust, and as much as I would enjoy running these parts the old-school way, it would be nice to just have them done at a shop.

[einstein57]

Pretty sure hella is still making new ones. IIRC Guten was waiting on a new batch so they could re-stock. The new design has a different bowl shape as well.

[jrobie79]

yeah they are still making new ones, abrahams sells em too, clear at least

[bmwman91]

Wow, good to know. I guess that a new set is a good option after all since the reflectors are still nice and shiny!

[golde30]

Some1 needs to find a shop that can chrome plastic, so we can all get our Hellas redone.

[jrobie79]

http://classicoldsmobile.com/forums/chassis-body-frame/6369-can-you-re-chrome-plastic.html

wealth of information on plastic chrome plating

[bmwman91]

I'm not sure if chrome plating would be good for a headlight application. The reflectors use an aluminum coating since, despite the fact that it will oxidize, aluminum oxide is clear, whereas chrome gets dark/black as it tarnishes. As it gets darker, it will absorb more heat and oxidize/peel more rapidly, and possibly damage the plastic.

[einstein57]

I've taken apart a few sets of projectors to harness the lenses and non of them had any pitting or flaking. Desert climate exemption?

[bmwman91]

Lucky I guess. Every set I have opened was beaten to hell.

I have ordered up some SLS (3D print) prototypes of the brackets and will be test fitting the projectors in a week or so when they arrive. So, I am officially working on this again!

[tofubento]

Some1 needs to find a shop that can chrome plastic, so we can all get our Hellas redone.

its called vacuum plating, about any plastics shop should know where to do that.

[bmwman91]

Nice! I was not aware that there were readily available CVD services out there.

[bmwman91]

Initial test-fits with the first set of 3D prints went well. My foam-core and X-Acto knife skills got me within 1mm in basically every dimension. Now that I can hard-mount the FX-R projectors to the buckets and put them into the headlight brackets, I am re-thinking a couple of things. The outside diameter of the bracket needs to shrink to ensure that things fit properly in the brackets, and they need to shrink even more if I am going to make a cast silicone weather boot thingy. The option of just using some aluminum tape to seal the openings is still on the table, and it might allow for better heat dissipation from the projector body. If I made a big silicone rubber boot, I would need to integrate vent holes to ensure that there was a little air flow while still preventing water and dust from going in. Thankfully, if I do go that route, I can get 3D prints pretty cheap, and I can make a mold from one of them.

I have a second revision of the parts ordered from the 3D printer and should have them next week. I will take and post some pics then.

[bmwman91]

Finally, some progress pics. Round two of SLS prototypes has worked out well, and I am ready to get these suckers made up in metal. The fit is nearly perfect. At this point, inconsistencies in the castings of the FX-R projectors cause more variance in things than the adapters, so it's time to call it "good enough".

One big item I wanted to make sure of was the clearance between the projector lens and the headlight cover. To do this, I used some painter's putty since it doesn't contain abrasives.
*squish*


The thinnest part is 1.5mm, which is what was predicted from my measurements of the parts.


There is also 0.5-1.0mm of clearance between the lens retainer ring and the decorative chrome "smiley" cover. It is a bit warped, probably from decades of heat cycling, so it may take a little tweaking when I glue everything into place eventually.


Here is the projector attached to the 2nd generation SLS (3D print) prototype.


"Inside" of the adapter.


"Outside" of the adapter.


But bmwman, isn't that thing like, overly complex? What's with all the intricate nonsense? Well, it so happens that the price the 3D print house charges is directly proportional to the actual volume of the part. So, I modeled my adapter and then cored the hell out of it. They say that they can do a minimum wall thickness of 0.7mm, so I went with 1.4mm since you just aren't going to get consistent 3D print results when you are riding the limits. Warp, sag and undesired holes become issues when you push the wall thickness limit.
A solid one would have cost $37, and these were $23. Not bad for an extra 20 minutes of work.


These SLS parts are super strong. I didn't have an M4x0.7 tap handy, so I just drove the machine screws right into it. The part took the threads fine without splitting or anything. They are flexible and strong (surprisingly so). The material is nylon (sintered powder).

My next steps are to make a couple of final tweaks and then proceed to make (or maybe have a fab shop do it) the aluminum adapters. From there, I will be buying new bucket adjuster screws since the ones on these were shot, and then assembling + aiming the projectors. Since they are NOT sealed, I will be looking at my clearances in the headlight brackets and seeing about developing rubber boots to keep water and dust out of them. Worst case, I just use some aluminum tape to close things up, but I think that I can come up with something more OEM looking. I'll post up a concept / cartoon of what I am thinking of in a day or so.

[mutty]

Good work.

[marines2060]

id like to see the results of your concept, i started with retrofiting the mini moto h1 projectors then just upgraded to the 6.0 h1's, i used these instead of the frx projectors because i thought its be way to difficult to fit. The minis fit inside the back cover and i just used a dremel and plastic welding to come up with something to be sealed and sturdy.

Id love to have a set of frx's in my car though, something with ds2 bulbs for a bright output. Keep up the good work, ill be watching this.