# DIY: Routan Halogen to HID OEM Mod



## routan2010se (Jun 17, 2013)

*DIY: Routan Halogen to HID Xenon OEM Mod*

So I opened my boxes this weekend from 2 different places for OEM HID headlights I ordered, but one of them was a Halogen, so that is going back. I decided to do one side just to gauge the difficulty and I had nothing better to do this morning 

Took me about 45 minutes to do one side, but that was probably because I was anal getting the light aligned in the fender with even spacing as well as deciding which of the filament bulbs to use, as I didn't want to be changing bulbs again (Should have just bought new ones). Looking at the filaments, any that had melting marks on the coils I replaced. No errors and everything worked great. Also, I now people have complained about moisture build up in lights, not sure if it was just HIDs, so if someone knows what to do to fix that (adding a vent which I have seen on every single other light in the last 10 years) that would be cool to add. I made sure all the seals around the openings were tight.

Anyways back to the job. You will need a small flat head pen screw driver, a 10mm socket with 3 or so inch extension and a small ratchet. You will also need a medium phillips head screw driver.


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Go ahead and pop the hood of the car, also if you are so inclined, disconnect the battery (I didn't bother.)

1. On the top of the bumper, there are two plastic push pins towards the middle, remove both of those with the small screw driver, prying the pin then pulling the plug.


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2. Remove the 2 10MM bolts on the top outer edges of the bumper next and set aside.

3. If the car has the battery connected still, turn the car on, turn the wheel till lock on opposite of the side you are going to work on first to replace headlight. You can do it without turning the wheel but it is a lot tighter. Shut off the car.

4. Now remove the 2 phillips screws in that well on that are near the bottom of the bumper on the side you want to remove first.


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5. With the 10MM socket and extension, line up your socket perpendicular to where the bumper and the fender meet and remove the 10MM bolt that is closest to the wheel well opening. This will be the hardest bolt and it is easy! The bolt is screwed in upside down.


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6. Undo the top bolt of the light with the 10MM socket.

7. You should now be able to flex the bumper out and reach the other two bolts. I recommend loosening with the extension, then remove it the rest of the way by hand.


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8. You should be able to wiggle the light out and then disconnect all the plugs. You can see the halogen on the left and xenon on the right. The halogen has a dummy plug, this is the real plug for the xenon and is the only plug you have to replace differently when attaching the new light, it is the same plug.


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9. Replace the unit, hand tighten all the bolts, and make sure the light is aligned with a proper gap the way you like it. I noticed it isn't all 100% even on the factory installed light, so do what makes you happy.

10. Test everything before you button up the bumper.


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11. Repeat for the second side starting with moving the wheel to gain access to the well.

I suspect the housing are molded from a lot of the same parts, and wouldn't be suprised if it might be possible to take a ballast/ignitor and a projector and retrofit this to a stock halogen headlight.


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## routan2010se (Jun 17, 2013)

I took a closer look at the halogen. It looks like if you can bake the light open, you can remove the reflector as it is screwed in and then replace with a projector. The bottom of the light has the holes and screw points for the ballast.

The only hard part would be to make the plug for the ballast.


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## MozartMan (Jul 31, 2010)

routan2010se,

Where did you buy OEM HID headlights from?


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## Artem (Dec 26, 2012)

We bought them from eBay or car-part.com

routan2010 - now if you suggesting to just replace the xenon part of the headlight, keeping the original housing - question is: where in this world and how do you get the xenon parts separately from the headlights?!


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## routan2010se (Jun 17, 2013)

MozartMan said:


> routan2010se,
> 
> Where did you buy OEM HID headlights from?


One on ebay for $250 shipped and one from a junkyard on car-parts.com for $325 shipped.


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## routan2010se (Jun 17, 2013)

Artem, I would probably look at the same places, ebay and car-part.com. I see on car part around $120 or so for I believe the module and projector. $40 for a ballast only on ebay right now.

Would make a nice project if you are interested in blacking out the lights and putting in LEDs on the bottom or something like the grand caravan blacktop version:










Or find a light from a crashed car were the housing is damaged. Panasonic makes the ballast.

Or go completely custom and do this, not worth the effort to me though:

http://www.theretrofitsource.com/retrofit_examples.php?retrofits_id=6


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## TCM GLX (Jan 2, 2000)

routan2010se said:


> So I opened my boxes this weekend from 2 different places for OEM HID headlights I ordered, but one of them was a Halogen, so that is going back. I decided to do one side just to gauge the difficulty and I had nothing better to do this morning
> 
> Took me about 45 minutes to do one side, but that was probably because I was anal getting the light aligned in the fender with even spacing as well as deciding which of the filament bulbs to use, as I didn't want to be changing bulbs again (Should have just bought new ones). Looking at the filaments, any that had melting marks on the coils I replaced. No errors and everything worked great. Also, I now people have complained about moisture build up in lights, not sure if it was just HIDs, so if someone knows what to do to fix that (adding a vent which I have seen on every single other light in the last 10 years) that would be cool to add. I made sure all the seals around the openings were tight.
> 
> ...



Can you take some pictures of the light output please.


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## routan2010se (Jun 17, 2013)

Here is a shot, taken from in front of the car, I still have the halogen in the left (problem with part) and the car is at an angle to the building and slightly tilting right. I have not leveled them yet, was waiting for the other one to come in and replace my drivers halogen. Was taken at 800 ISO with my cell, so not the best.










Head on shot of the car.

Same 800 ISO on a cell phone. Just to show the color temperature with the stock DS1 bulb (I think that is what it is) vs the H11


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## routan2010se (Jun 17, 2013)

Finally got the headlight aft 2x being sent the wrong one. First a halogen. Next a light from a tiguan. Anyways. Went in in 30 min now that I knew what I was doing. I am tempted now to bake these lights open. The old halogens that is.


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## Chedman13 (May 30, 2012)

Great job and thanks for posting.

Have you thought about the LED rear taillights?

I'm thinking they will pop right in, but the wiring is a bit different I think (connectors).

I'm not electrically inclined enough to make it a project. I've always liked the OEM LED tail lights on the Dodge's more than the VW Routan ones.

I'm surprised you didn't get any error readings of low voltage by swapping the halogen to HID's.

Now if I can only find projector fogs, the stock ones are pretty useless. I didn't want to throw HID retro kit in there because even it's low, it still throws light onto oncoming traffic and blind them.


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## Artem (Dec 26, 2012)

You're right, the fog lights are useless when you have HIDs. I barely notice any change in the view when I turn them on or off at night. So the fog lights are more for self admiration.

Yes there are no errors or anything, they are direct plug-n-play.

As of the rear LED tail lights, I thought about this! I too like the Grand Caravan set up. Damn, even the cargo version get LED tails.
Initially I thought of a simple solution like a LED light bulb, but there is a non-transparent reflector that blocks the bulb. With the LED lights, you want them to emit direct light out, not have it reflected from the surface of the tail light assembly.










I suggest buying a used tail light from eBay and play with it. You could open it up and experiment with different LED stripes.


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## Chedman13 (May 30, 2012)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dodge-Grand...Parts_Accessories&hash=item3a81b29fdb&vxp=mtr

$25 or best offer + $15 shipping!

Try it out Artem=)


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## routan2010se (Jun 17, 2013)

You need something like this:


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## Artem (Dec 26, 2012)

That looks awesome and I am willing to try this. I have serious doubts whether this is really insertable in the bulb opening, but what would be the keywords to find this thing on eBay?

My other concern is visibility in direct sunlight. I know that LEDs light bright at night but it is important to test them in the day conditions under all angles.


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## georgef61 (May 16, 2011)

Artem said:


> ... what would be the keywords to find this thing on eBay?


Try "SPOKE ARM SPIDER LITE RED"

George


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## Chedman13 (May 30, 2012)

LEDs in halogen/filament housing are not bright enough in daylight. I've even tried Cree ones and they really belong in a led designed housing.


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## routan2010se (Jun 17, 2013)

Something like this would probably work better. The problem is you need the light to reflect off the housing, and LEDs facing forward won't do that. But you won't get an LED look, just bright light.

The other problem, as mentioned above, if these are brake lights, you want people to seem them in sunlight. I forget the distance in the US.










This is an idea of what it would look like:










As for install, looks spring loaded:


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## fattymatty20 (Aug 21, 2013)

*LED bulb replacement.*

I replaced the halogen bulbs with LED's and in my opinion they are at least as bright as the halogen during the day and much brighter at dusk/night/dawn. They needed to be resisted to prevent hyper-flashing and the error in the dash. Here is a video of them in running mode and then illuminated as I am locking and unlocking the vehicle:







These are the bulbs I used:

http://www.vleds.com/bulb/3157-3156-led/3157-red.html

You need to order the CK base versions of these bulbs so they don't blow fuses. If anyone has any other questions about this mod let me know.


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## gigem01 (Oct 3, 2013)

Great writeup! I would like clarification on one thing though. Does the OEM HID housing include all electronics and bulb required to make the HID light work? And it just uses the same power connector formerly used by the halogen bulb?

Also, can and will the HID bulb ever need to be changed?


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## nater (Apr 10, 2000)

Chedman13 said:


> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dodge-Grand...Parts_Accessories&hash=item3a81b29fdb&vxp=mtr
> 
> $25 or best offer + $15 shipping!
> 
> Try it out Artem=)


What am I missing here?
The Routan lamps are a completely different shape than Caravan, no ?

Caravan led:








Routan lamp:


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## fattymatty20 (Aug 21, 2013)

nater said:


> What am I missing here?
> The Routan lamps are a completely different shape than Caravan, no ?
> 
> Caravan led:
> ...


They are completely different and will not fit. You don't need the entire fixture just a quality LED bulb and resistor. Basically the same price as the whole unit that you posted that was/is for sale off the Dodge.


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## routan2010se (Jun 17, 2013)

gigem01 said:


> Great writeup! I would like clarification on one thing though. Does the OEM HID housing include all electronics and bulb required to make the HID light work? And it just uses the same power connector formerly used by the halogen bulb?
> 
> Also, can and will the HID bulb ever need to be changed?


Depends, if you by new, I doubt it, if you buy used most likely.

I had no issues, the bulbs probably should be replaced in mine since they are 4-5 years old at this point and I am sure faded.

Yes, you can change the bulbs and will have to at some point. It is tight back there but can be done.


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## bond007pr (Jul 10, 2006)

routan2010se said:


> Depends, if you by new, I doubt it, if you buy used most likely.
> 
> I had no issues, the bulbs probably should be replaced in mine since they are 4-5 years old at this point and I am sure faded.
> 
> Yes, you can change the bulbs and will have to at some point. It is tight back there but can be done.


I am looking to buy myself a set of used factory Routan HID lights from "the bay" in the nearby future, so just wanted to clarify, all I need is the assemblies, plus the bulbs/ballasts that install from the bottom(which should be included in the assemblies) and that's it? Do the halogen bulb wire connectors work the same, and no need a trip to dealer to pre-program anything? if so, seems like an easy "factory mod"... Lol


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## Artem (Dec 26, 2012)

No reprogramming needed, the connectors are identical, they are just plug-and-play.


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