A recent upgrade of led fog lights on the 2nd Gen Lexus GS led to the need to retrofit some projectors. Well maybe it was just an excuse to finally do a retrofit. The M45 projectors were chosen not just for their output but also their Tron like appearance that hopefully would tie the led fog lights together with the front end.
Ordered a set of Depo headlights and took the plunge, well the headlights did, in the oven.
250 degrees fanrenheit for 10min and the lens could be pried apart slowly without much resistance. Just be careful not to get the sealant on the chrome bezel. A soldering gun will help cut through the sealant as they string up when you pry it apart.
With the lens off you can choose to remove the amber lens for the turn signals. I chose not to, I like the amber in there. I also got some clear lenses to replace the fresnal stock glass lens. The clear lenses give a sharper cutoff point and provides a marginally brighter and wider beam. It also exaggerates that exotic color flicker effect. Ordered the lens from The Retrofit Source. Fast shipping and very good customer service. I probably should've talked to them before I ordered the lens. Was in a hurry and ordered the 2.5" fx-r lens and well the focal point on the fx-r lens is different. The fx-r is made for a bi-focal projector so has a 24mm focus height whereas the tsx-r lens has a 22mm focus height. Here is a comparison shot of height difference between the two. The lens on the right is the tsx-r lens.
With the housing taken apart and the lens swapped out the projector was ready to be fitted into the housing. Brackets from Luxury Mods were ordered and it made it a breeze to set these up in the housing. Again fast shipping and excellent customer service. I tried different size bolts to see which would best suit the fitment and the 6-32 x 2" were perfect. I ended up getting the stainless steel ones because I kept over tightening the bolts pictured below and stripping them. Also used loctite to prevent any unwanted loosening of these nuts and bolts.
Trimmed the inner part of the chrome bezel to fit the projector.
This is how the projector sat in the housing with 3" screws:
This is how it sits with the 2 inch screws:
With everything fitting and sitting where I wanted it, sealed the headlights back up and the end result:
Sharp, bright, wide cut off line with the blue/purple color band showing at the cutoff. Well worth it.
