Hey guys, I bought this set of headlamp online and I believe they are OEM (from the little Honda word on the plastic cover).

However I thought the side should have the orange cover instead of transparent looking. could it be another version? please help identify.. Thanks!

 

In the U.S., the Department of Transportation states we need amber colored side reflectors for the front, and red side reflectors for the back. It is required to have these colored reflectors on a moving vehicle, and if a car has any other colored reflectors or doesn't have it, it can be ticketed. There are cars that use aftermarket lenses that are white, blue, or a different color that is not amber or red. Sometimes these cars get away with it; other times they are issued a "fix-it-ticket".

In Europe and other parts of the world, you'll see white side reflectors which is straight from the factory, like the ones you got off Ebay. But, you can get a fix it citation here in the U.S. for them on your car.

 

those are OEM.

they are the 04-05 JDM lights.

or mabye EDM, I'd have to see the stamp on the back of the housings.

they are very expensive and nice lights.

 

good to know they are OEM in the back there are four lines of printing in white:

P2925
12V55W-H1
12V35W-D2S
HCHR-148

on the other parts of the headlamp, it is letter in circle (J) (E) (AUS)

hope those info help.

and by expensive, how much would you pay for them??

 

Japan, Europe, Australia

 

Bunch of Questions,

Pacman, my question to you is: then how did people get away with having JDM headlight on?

and if i really need those amber side reflector, would i be able to take them off my cracked headlight?

and as for now the inside looks pretty nasty, i am not sure if the previous owner opened it or what, is it hard to open it? I know i have to stick it in the oven, but I just don't want to mess it up.

 

the biggest concern I would have is if they are RHD projectors.

 

so...would you say they are JDM... or... EDM...?

 

Rhd?

 

not sure by the numbers you listed.
is ther a J7 or similar stamp on them?

one way to narrow it down is to identify the beam pattern in
the projectors.

look into the projector slots and look for the cutoff plate.


^looks like this.

is the left side or the right side of your cutoff plates higher?

 

People can get away with it because it's a minor moving violation that sometimes cops won't bother. It's like having a aftermarket exhaust; maybe you'll get pulled over, maybe not. If a cop wanted to, they can pull you over for not having DOT approved headlamps; the big tip off would be white side reflectors at night. I got a fix it ticket cause the campus police said my fog lights on my 4-runner weren't aimed right. It depends on the cop.

I've never played around opening up the headlamp housing. But there's a recent thread about it somewhere here.

 

Right Hand Drive

 

hmm... both look like that same height... what does that mean??

and there is a stamp saying J0

 

J0 is probably JDM.
I run 06-08 lights, which are different, so I'm no expert at 04-05.
06-08 JDM is stamped J7.


they have to be different, they can't be the same height.

in my picture, the left side is higher than the right side.
it's either one way or the other.
it's the metal plate that looks like this -> -------------\____________
in the center of the picture.

by the way, my picture is a RHD JDM projector.
I run them on my car with no problems so far, but I run low lumen
HIDs so it's not too glaring (8000k).

so are you saying yours look like my picture?

 

on both side, left is higher than right..

both looks like ----> ------------\__________

 

I say there's a real solid chance they are indeed 04-05 JDM lights.
RHD projectors.

as for price, I'm not sure, but I can tell you my 06-08 ones cost $800 (new).

and yes, opening them involves heating them/baking them in the oven.

 

so what's the difference between LHD and RHD? would it matter?

 

Yea, for us folks in the U.S., it's the other way around. So I say what MM says...JDM.

 

it does.
JDM or any RHD will potentially blind on comming traffic.
the beam pattern is there to lower it on the side of on comming traffic.

in the US, we drive on the right, with steering wheels on the left of the car
which makes us LHD. the on comming traffic is to our left.
so in the US the beam is lowered on the left to not have it hit their eyes,
yet raised on the right to better cover the road in front of our car.

it is opposite for RHD.

a JDM light in the US will have the beam pattern higher pointing at on comming
traffic, causing them to be blinded or get pissed off.

we can adjust the entire lights and point them down, but the only way to
change the beam pattern is to swap the projectors with LHD ones.

I have RHD lights on my car, but I rarely if ever drive at night.
If I drove at night with this car, I would swap the projectors with the ones
that are in my USDM lights that came with the car.

 

wow, that would be pain in the ass to change everytime I drive at night...

so the one you showed in picture is... RHD? just like mine?

 

What I would be concerned about it headlight condensation, a common problem with 04-05 headlights. There is a TSB for USDM lights, but if you have JDM or EDM lights, I don't know if the dealer will fix your headlights if condensation appears. Those with condensation in your non-USDM lights, have you had any luck getting the dealer to fix them, or did you have to buy new lights?

 

yes, my lights are RHD.
and you don't change anything everytime.
you take the projectors from a LHD drive light and put it into the
RHD light, then it is a RHD light forever there after.

it involves a bit of work by taking the projectors out of the housings
in all of the lights and switching them around, but worth it in the end.
you do not have to open the housings to get the projectors out either,
it can be done with them still in tact.

I use 8000k bulbs, which are blue. and not only blue, they are kinda dim.
not nearly as bright as the 4300k ones the car comes with. when the color
temperature of the bulb goes over 5000k-6000k, the light output dims with
the color change. so I do probably shoot light into the cabin of oncoming
traffic, but it's dim and doesn't bother anyone. I've never been flashed
by other drivers for them thinking my high beams were on. but if I still ran
these RHD JDM lights with brighter bulbs in them, I bet I would get flashed alot.

and yes ^ these lights can possibly get condensation problems which is a
real pain to deal with.

 

Well, I cannot answer your question as I am the third owner of my TSX and the first owner had a halo kit on. Therefore I don't know if there's any condensation problem. FYI, I checked the current headlamp just now and mine is A1, which I assume USDM??

As you can probably tell from the first picture, you can see small amount of water dried up in it (it even looks muddy!) I am not sure how there were water in there as the seller told me that he didn't get to open it (which I doubt ).

That's why I want to know how to take it apart, clean it inside out, put it back together, seal it even better than before and send in to get the rest of the front part of the car repaired (as you all can recall that I was the one who got backed into at a parking lot)

So my questions are: is it hard to get it open and is it hard to seal it back? and is there any recommended way to do/seal it?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-q0SVALfus

you can put it back together with an RTV silicone, and then
you won't need to bake them back together. just apply the RTV,
clamp all around, and let it set for 8-24 hours.

no matter what you'll want to bake them to open them.

 

Adjust the beams and run amber corner bulbs... that's what I would do

 

Well, I think I will just clean this headlamp first and just run amber corner bulb like JDMCL9T said.

 

the 06-08 JDM lamps have blue corner pieces. and the center light, the turn signal light
is clear. so where on your 04-05 JDM lights, where it has an orange lense cover over
the center round light (turn signal), that is clear on the 06-08. so what I have to do
is put amber bulbs in for the turns, and I would suppose I would need amber bulbs in
the corners too. but I happen to be lucky, I run blue bulbs in the blue corner lights
(parking lights) and no cop in my area seems to care. we're pretty lucky there. most of
the cars with tints around here are at about 15-20%, both illegal, but nobody gets
tickets. my tint shop says they only do about 1 legal tint for ever 40 cars they do.

it's not really that big of a deal in most places, lots of people have these JDM lights and
very few if any of us ever experience any problems or tickets because of them. the only
thing a cop has ever asked me about the car is if I want to sell it to him. so I wouldn't
be too worried about it if I were you, that's all I'm trying to say.

 

well, I tried to baked it in the oven, but at 250F seems too hot for plastic... I read on the other post and they said they baked it in for 5 min. but the video with the Advance guys they baked it for 15 min... I don't know which to go with.

and thanks MMsTSX, you've always been the great help and I will just put them on and not worry about the amber light (I like how it's looking right now anyway)

 

you're welcome.

well as for baking, I'm not sure what I would do either.
I personally would probably follow that video to the T.
in fact, my JDM lights were sent to that company, and they opened them up,
installed one of their kits, and closed them back up perfectly.
they've probably done dozens at least of these and probably have it down
pretty well from what I'm guessing. and they did it to my lights and it came out perfect.

now that said, I don't think one way is any better than another.
I'm no expert or whatever. but I don't think there really are any experts for this
kind of thing, but if there were, I'd count AAC as one of those experts.
but anybody and everybody could screw it up, even them. so best to probably just
follow your own intuition.

but as far as 250 being too hot... I don't think so, that's not that bad.
these housings are real heavy duty and built to sit in the hot sun for days at a time.
I think they can handle the oven just fine, I wouldn't be concerned about that personally.