Spotties install behind the grill

[lefty]

My latest project - Hella Comet 500 spotties behind the grill
Not perfect I need to get new grill mesh as this current one is looking hacked up and need to put a spacer to raise the spotties by a few cm.
There is a bit of wobble but not as bad as the setup I had before with the license plate light bar.

EDIT: HID retrofit 2014

bought a 55w 4300k HID kit off ebay for $65. I paid a bit extra for the smaller H3C bulb with a ceramic base.
The smaller bulb made retrofitting easy, there was no need to drill or heatgun the housing to fit the bulb. I chose to cut then resolder the wiring rather than drill a hole for the harness to fit through.
Unfortunatley I did not get any before photos but I am very pleased with the result.
It beats the pants off the previous 100W halogens and the light beam is wider and fairly even.
They will not beat dedicated HID spotties but cost a whole heap less.
Overall it's a great compromise for having HID spotties without the need for a nudge/bullbar.

 

[Kevin]

Nice setup!

 

[mr turbo]

Well done lefty they look great.

Regards
Mr Turbo

 

[El_Freddo]

Well I was originally going to say **** idea - you won't get any light through the grill... But after seeing the pics it looks the goods!

One question - how do you clean them??? I'm forever cleaning mine for the best light out front...

Cheers

Bennie

 

[lefty]

standard grill has to be modified with mesh of course
the mesh doesn't affect light output at all
as for cleaning, best you can do is a careful squirt with a high pressure hose
changing the bulb will be a pain though.

 

[eden]

looks pretty sweet Lefty. nice one.

 

[El_Freddo]

Can you make the grill a "quick release"? I know my grill while I had it was just sitting there, held by a large cable tie that wasn't tied back to hold it in - basically it was pushed through the hole and left just like that. It was great for cleaning the radiator after a mud hole play. Its now cracked and I need another one so I don't have one at the moment...

Cheers

Bennie

 

[dougr]

Dredging up an old thread here...

Doesn't this significantly reduce airflow to the radiator? I spend a lot of time in the U.S. southwest (read: hot) and think there'd probably be too much air blockage.

 

[Rally]

That would be my concern as well. But since Lefty lives in Perth (also in the south west as it happens), where in summer it can be very hot as well, it surely would have become apparent by now. Maybe across the Nullabor, or the Stuart Hwy in summer would be when the system would be at its most vulnerable to overheating. On my last Forester I mounted mine to all but eliminate reduced airflow to the radiator.

 

[lefty]

They haven't seen a summer yet. will just have to wait and see

 

[lefty]

well 3.5 years later there are no problems with overheating.
I've still got them in fact I searched up this thread again to see how I had them installed since I'm thinking of doing a HID retrofit like this:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8t51nq5FmU"]Hella 500 with H.I.D. 6000k retrofit done the right way - YouTube[/ame]


it will be a tight fit as there is not much room to the radiator.
I'll report back if I end up doing this.

 

[Blix666]

i have a similar setup on my '08 and have not had any cooling problems...although i'm not comparing my local climate to yours, we do have summer days in the high 90s...

 

[lefty]

HID retrofit first post