has anyone tried this headlight conversion??

[PetesPonies]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Lincoln-MARK-VIII-8-HID-headlight-replacement-kit-NIB_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ36476QQihZ015QQitem Z250245651026QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

[turborich]

That's a lot of money for some $80.00 HID's with a set of adapter plates. If you don't want to fuss with it yourself then it might be a decent solution. The seller's feedback is not that great.

[pro-five-oh]

I just want the frickin adapter plates. Anyone want to go into business and make 'em?

[BrooklynMarkVIII]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Lincoln-MARK-VIII-8-HID-headlight-replacement-kit-NIB_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ36476QQihZ015QQitem Z250245651026QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW


Dude.

I was on vacation in Fl and went over to my friends house and put 2 NEW housings in with this upgrade to HID:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/HID-CONVERSION-KIT-LINCOLN-CONTINENTAL-LS-MARK-VII-VIII_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ36476QQihZ017QQite mZ270234793279QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

Just let me say that I have now seen the LIGHT! :D 6000k bulbs and it's the best thing that I spent money on yet!

I was worried about it burning the new housings, but it's not going to get hot enough to do that. I have had them on my car for over 4 months and I dont see any problems.

[jamies98lsc]

my 93 has rechromed stock halogen housings with 80 dollar 6000k hid's and its the best thing done to the mark so far!! like brooklyn said, the light is awesome. they are sweet.

[BrooklynMarkVIII]

I installed mine down in Flordia and on the way home on I95, I had them a little bit high and it looked like I was driving down an airport runway!! those lights lit up the little reflectors in the highway for over a mile ahead! I am sure the people driving ahead of me were pissed cause I didnt adjust them until I got to NY!:eek:

[PetesPonies]

so to be clear, that $50 kit from ebay is a bolt in, relatively hassle free install??

[turborich]

so to be clear, that $50 kit from ebay is a bolt in, relatively hassle free install??

It's more like $89.00 when you figure the shipping. Yes the kit is a 100% plug and play installation for the Gen 1 mark VIII with the factory hallogen lights.

[mikemark8]

that headlight conversion is for a GEN 1 that did NOT come with HID's-gen one conversions (NON HID) are as cheap as $77 shipped("hidsolutions" on ebay), but you are looking for adapters first for your HID housings so that you can install a 9005-type HID bulbs into your housing.
I have a Gen I 96 non-HID, and installed a plug-and-play HID kit from "hidsolutions" in my Mark, and it was so easy it is the best single improvement you can make with halogen-based lights on these cars. The problem with Gen 1 LSC's have HID's and Gen 2 (all HID) is you can't get bulbs for a reasonable price-used goes for $150 up, Ford doesn't help at all, although if they are providing an adaptor socket that will accept a 9005 fitting, you can fix this problem by buying one of these kits.

[PetesPonies]

OK . . there's the problem. I have a 97.

[mikemark8]

that's why I added to turborich's response-you need an adapter first so that a halogen-based HID kit designed to replace a 9005 (or other available) HID aftermarket bulb can work with your housing.

I think they exist, and I thought I read somewhere that maybe Ford has a kit that does this-it may not accept a 9005, but accepts a different halogen-based fitting and the HID kits that are sold come in all different bases. Others will chime in here if they know of a way to solve this for Gen Two's.

I am sure there are Gen One owners like me out there that are actually glad that we Gen One owners can fix out lights after all the years we had driving in the 'dark'-now Gen Two's have to solve a different problem, finding HID's that work in their cars since Ford can't (or won't) solve their problem of not being able to get new bulbs.

[bojo68]

I think Jamie has a cure for this.

[turborich]

I really wouldn't think it would be that hard to fab up some adapter plates. If I had a Gen2 I would have made something to work for this without spending $300 bucks.

[mikemark8]

I really wouldn't think it would be that hard to fab up some adapter plates. If I had a Gen2 I would have made something to work for this without spending $300 bucks.

absolutely-you should be able to McGyver something so that you can buy a kit designed to work on a Gen 1 halogen setup-so much less money that it'd be worth the effort and you might develop a fix that solves this problem for Gen II owners. You'd be a star on here to other Gen II owners who face a worsening situation, I'd bet.

[bojo68]

absolutely-you should be able to McGyver something so that you can buy a kit designed to work on a Gen 1 halogen setup-so much less money that it'd be worth the effort and you might develop a fix that solves this problem for Gen II owners. You'd be a star on here to other Gen II owners who face a worsening situation, I'd bet.

If I was gonna try that, I'd at least give some thought to trying to get the new bulb placed such that the arc/element is located at the same depth that the previous one was.

[Philip]

This will not help Gen I owners, but for Gen II owners who are without one or more lights and who may also be concerned about what the car is going to look like or perform like with halogen, I brought my old thread about my conversion to the present so you can go in there and look at the pictures.

Yes, they are a different color temperature, but those are huge lights and they produce a nice spread pattern, about like a present-day Town Car.

See "Collision Repair and Halogen Retrofit Kit" There are pictures in the 12/09 post.

[luxuryrules]

If I was gonna try that, I'd at least give some thought to trying to get the new bulb placed such that the arc/element is located at the same depth that the previous one was.

Sir, I am impressed - this is exactly what I was going to say. The focal point of a rebased D2S bulb with adapter rings is way off, so the beam pattern is, frankly, fecal matter. Great headlight bulbs with poor focus are just as bad, or worse, than poor headlights. I've seen one of these conversions in person and it absolutely sucked.

Phillip has chimed in with the only DOT legal solution for GenII owners. It also happens to be the best way to go - the lighting is great, and a replacement bulb can be had at your local parts shop for ten bucks. It is really likely to be the only long term solution, because I would not count on rebased HID bulbs being around any more than I would count on any more ANSI9500 bulbs from Ford :)

GenI HID owners (like myself) are still left out to dry. I think, when the time comes, I'll probably get a set of used halogen housings, replace the reflective surfaces (trim brite treatment!), vent the housings, and use a relayed set of HIRs.

[turborich]

The HIR's do not even come close to HID's. I tried the HIR's in my 95 & the light output was no where near that of HID's. The HIR's also get much hotter then the factory halogens or the HID's.

Is the focal point the same if you use a aftermarket HID kit in a GEN1? I don't know, but I do know the light output is 10X better! I can see the little reflective dots going down the highway at night & it looks like a video game. They really light up! I am glad that I took a chance on them.

I'm sure that someone will be able to fab up something that will work just fine.

[luxuryrules]

Is the focal point the same if you use a aftermarket HID kit in a GEN1?

An HID retrofit to a halogen housing will be able to get the focal point pretty accurate. The issue with using adapter rings on an ANSI9500 housing to use an HID bulb is that the ANSI9500 sticks further into the housing, so even a rebased D2S will not be able to reach in there far enough to get to the focal point. The tricky part is that the ANSI9500 is narrower, so getting a D2S in there (or any of the standard HID bulbs) would involved enlargement of the holes at the back of the housings. That's a bit much.

[mikemark8]

[QUOTE=turborich;669104]The HIR's do not even come close to HID's. I tried the HIR's in my 95 & the light output was no where near that of HID's. The HIR's also get much hotter then the factory halogens or the HID's.

after removing the diffusers, trimbrighting the housings,and installing FOG LIGHTS behind the grill, I did HID's on my Gen I-no comparison to anything else, night and day-and only $77, about 30 minutes to install. I can't imagine that HIr'S could improve on these.

[turborich]

[QUOTE=turborich;669104]The HIR's do not even come close to HID's. I tried the HIR's in my 95 & the light output was no where near that of HID's. The HIR's also get much hotter then the factory halogens or the HID's.

after removing the diffusers, trimbrighting the housings,and installing FOG LIGHTS behind the grill, I did HID's on my Gen I-no comparison to anything else, night and day-and only $77, about 30 minutes to install. I can't imagine that HIr'S could improve on these.

The HIR's wouldn't even come close. This HID & trimbrite is the best thing for Gen 1 lighting out there! No more almost driving into things at night.:p

[luxuryrules]

Guys... the only serious reason you're seeing the differences that you are is because of the trimbriting. Had you each done only the trimbrite and put regular 9005 headlight's back in there, you'd have 98% of the light output that you have now.

The biggest reason to run HIDs, which I had forgotten about, was temperature - to keep the same thing from happening again. And because of that, yeah, I'd skip over the HIRs. But I wouldn't exactly trust a cheapie ebay kit, unless I knew for a fact that I was buying geniune Phillips ballasts *and* bulbs.

[93' Blue on blue]

When i trimbritted my housings, i compared halogen to HID back to back - HUGE difference.

[turborich]

Guys... the only serious reason you're seeing the differences that you are is because of the trimbriting. Had you each done only the trimbrite and put regular 9005 headlight's back in there, you'd have 98% of the light output that you have now.

The biggest reason to run HIDs, which I had forgotten about, was temperature - to keep the same thing from happening again. And because of that, yeah, I'd skip over the HIRs. But I wouldn't exactly trust a cheapie ebay kit, unless I knew for a fact that I was buying geniune Phillips ballasts *and* bulbs.

No, not at all. My hallogen housings were new, the halogens & HIR's SUCKED compared the the HID's! I didn't use trimbrite in my housings. However If your housings are burnt then the trimbrite is good stuff.;)

[luxuryrules]

Gee, I guess I stand corrected :)

Before trimbriting the housings in my 95, I tried an HID conversion kit and got zip. After trimbriting the housings, I could easily say I had several times the light output using 9005s with good reflectors than HIDs with poor reflectors. The HIDs went in again, out of curiosity, and I saw little noticable difference. Really, the important part to restoring light output is the reflective surfaces. The advantage of HIDs is in temperature, as a safeguard to ensure it doesn't burn away the surfaces again.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

[mikemark8]

i will add to that, i did the trimbright and put back the halogens, and there is no comparison-while better with new reflective tape in areas that burned off with the halogens, it still is not even close to the HID's-the front of my lenses were clear, just not enough light with halogens even with the diffusers removed.

After I did the trimbright and tried to run with halogens again, I removed the diffusers, THEN I bought a driving light kit and installed them behind the grill-even they were better than the halogens with trimbright treatment. For a Gen one, aftermarket HID's are cheap, easy to install and make it possible to see well at night.

[luxuryrules]

For a Gen one, aftermarket HID's are cheap, easy to install and make it possible to see well at night.

...provided there is a good reflective surface behind them. The point I'm trying to get across here is that HIDs alone won't do it... you need either new housings or trimbriting. You guys already did that, so it's really moot point, but for the benefit of those in the future we need to make clear that the first thing they do is trimbrite the housings.

[turborich]

...provided there is a good reflective surface behind them. The point I'm trying to get across here is that HIDs alone won't do it... you need either new housings or trimbriting. You guys already did that, so it's really moot point, but for the benefit of those in the future we need to make clear that the first thing they do is trimbrite the housings.

Correct! New HID's in a burnt up housing will not help you. You need a good shinny housing or the trimbrite to start with. This is true with HID's HIR's or halogens.

Once you have a good reflective material in the housing the HID's will outperform the others though.

[luxuryrules]

Hey! Guess we're all in agreement.

That said, do we have anybody that is soon going to be doing the trimbrite treatment? I'm curious to see if we can get a Tech article going here...

[jamies98lsc]

my buddy martin has an awesome write up with full blown instructions and fully detailed picures, but they are on another site and this site wont allow it to be linked here, there are over 20 photo's in there. i have pics of the process too, but if a link could be placed someone could see how to do it also, not just look at my pics.

[PetesPonies]

if you send the pics to me, I'll post them.

[jamies98lsc]

how come we can just be allowed to put a link to the write up directly in here, then all people have to do is click on it and see the whole thing with step by step on the entire process. i know boards dont like to have links to other lincoln boards, i understand this, but for something like this, so many people would benefit if they could have this write up to refer to. its not just the pictures, but martin writes in between every pic and explains how to do it all, just showing pics wouldnt help as much as knowing what is happening in each picture.

[93' Blue on blue]

No problem Jamie! Im in the process of resizing the pics and uploading through photobucket. I can write any extra stuff in as i go. I couldn't decide which pics would be useful so i figured id just put everything up and people can use whatever parts they want.

[jamies98lsc]

lol man thats gonna take awhile dude!!!

[Warthog5]

This brings up a point here about using PhotoBucket as apposed to the forums pix processor.

I'm still new around here, but not new to posting pix's on forums and am a moderator on one of the boating forums. [Classic Mako]

Using PhotoBucket is extremely easy and has even gotten easier as time has gone on with their improvements.

It's free to most unless your like me and have over 1000 pix's uploaded for how to do stuff.

It also takes a load off the forums server. This relates to not having to upgrade the forums server as often. Saves $$!

93' Blue on blue is downloading the pix's that are on that forums site and then uploading them to his PhotoBucket account.

If they were on a PhotoBucket account now it would be real easy to post everything here and not a a conflict with forum rules.

The only problem that can happen and I've seen this on old posts on other forums, is that with a free account you eventually get to a max amount before you have to pay.

Some people will delete pix's from their account to make room for new pix's.
What happens is you just get the dreaded Red X where the pixs were.

I hope this help's explain some things about posting pixs?

If you have a problem with posting pix's feel free to ask and I'll see if I can help you.

A pix is worth a 1000 words. :)

EDIT: I see that 93' Blue on blue wrote and made the pix's originally on the other forum. Nice work.

[93' Blue on blue]

Yes, thanks for the compliment and pics info! (and to the other guys that offered pics advice too) Will have those pics over this week.

Warthog: Sent you a PM with regard to all this stuff! Thanks!

[Warthog5]

Got it, email sent. :)


Bobby

[luxuryrules]

Blue on Blue, you have PM.

[Warthog5]

I checked the Advance Auto Parts near me today. They didn't have the Trim-bright product. They did have some 3M Foil Tape.

I decided to check down the street at Pep Boys.
They had the wide Trim-Bright for $6.99 roll and the narrower stuff for $4.99.

I bought 1 of the wide and 2 of the narrow.

[93' Blue on blue]

I haven't seen a wider version of the Trimbrite yet, but i did pick up a roll of something called Guardian Chrome rocker panel tape from Autozone for 10 bux - appears to be more or less the same stuff. (Jamie gave me that tip) Next time i do a set of housings i will be able to make them seamless. (except the low beam rear which has to be done in strips to avoid wrinkles)

Sounds like what you have there will do the job though. Are you gonna make up some templates out of old card like i did? When i did mine, i rechromed all parts, except the rear of the high beam housing and the rear of the amber housing. (those parts can be tricky and i figured there was no need, but everything else was pretty easy)

[jamies98lsc]

the wide stuff is awesome, 8 inch vrs 3 inch, one roll of 3 inch would barely get me through a pair of housings, so i tried the guardian chrome 8 inch roll, lol i have already done 3 entire sets of housings for 1st gen, 3 left, 3 right and i still have almost 5 feet of the roll left. and like martin said, with 8 inch wide you can really cut down on having seamed pieces inside the housings, man this stuff rocks lol!!! i just finished two mark VIII's in my shop, a 93 and 94 rechromed and buffed housings and aftermarket hid conversions and these both had factory hid's and lsc lenses in them and these that i redid are by far brighter and more of a smoother beam pattern, i have noticed factory hid's and lenses have a pretty sloppy beam direction compared to the halogen housings with the refractors left inside. now i have another customer who has seen my 93 and the two i did and now he wants it done to his 93 lol. keep em coming!!

[Warthog5]

templates out of old card like i did?

Yes, Regular poster paper. The standard for making templates for anything. :)