Angel eyes fog lights

One of my fog lights got hit by a stone and shattered, so after going to dealer and getting a $300 quote to replace one light, I said, what the heck, I can do it myself, so here's my ordeal.
1 off I found LED fog lights marked as FOR Nissan Leaf from Bling lights, (blinglights.com) ordered it, and... they were way too big (like 1.5" bigger than the hole) and they were supposed to mount on a flag bumper surface with... sticky tape... So, send them back after talking to their service dept, they clamed "many Leaf installations without a problem". BS, I don't see how... If someone did install them, please let me know...

Anyway, I came across angel eyes 3" fog lights, non-LED, except for eye rim, and thought, what the heck, lets make Leaf look a bit like BMW

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-LONG-RANG...ries&fits=Model:3&hash=item27c64d4ff3&vxp=mtr
At 65$/pair, compared with $300 for one, seems like a good deal, especially if I can sell my god fog light to someone (bid if you want it http://www.ebay.com/itm/330742442495?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649)

Attached are before and after pics and sequence of the process.
Before:


After:



Read the next post for the process

One more close up after I replaced parking bulbs and side markers with LEDs (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KHA6K2/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00) to match color temperature to the LED angel eyes:

Here's the process:
1. Turn the wheels right to work on left side, left to work on the right side
unbolt some of the front bottom shield screws/remove the fasteners to loosen it so you can flip open the wheel hub cover.
You should be able to pull front part of the wheel hub cover from under the bottom shield:


2. Unscrew 2 screws from the wheel hub and release 2 fasteners:


3. Pry off the wheel hub cover enough to get access to the behind the bumper area


4. Now you can unscrew 3 screws that hold fog light assembly on a bracket (there are 4 holes, 3 screws and one stub that fits into 4th hole on fog light)

5. Remove the fog light

Now you are ready to do the hardest part - manufacture the adapter. I hope you read this before you did all above steps and prepared beforehand.
I used aluminum angle from Home depot 1/16" thick 1"x36".
Here's the drawing was made for the part (I used metric as seems like Nissan's part are rounded for metric system so I can work with nice rounded numbers instead some fraction approximation if you need to convert 1 inch = 25.4 millimeters)




You need 2 brackets for each light (second one will be a mirror image from right to left)
Here's the new fog light with brackets attached:


Now put the new assembly into the place and attach it with original screws.

Enjoy the new look! Next, let's do the electrical work.

For electrical part I decided to connect angel eyes to parking lights (They are still on when main lights are on), and keep main fog switch for the fog lights. (Fog light for this one is the same 55W as leaf's so no need to worry about relay and stuff)
I used radio shack's splice connectors to tap into the wires and keep OEM plug for original fog lights

Splice connector: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103500
Splice with disconnect: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2998435

You can use either, I used regular splice near fog light and disconnect hear main leaf lights.

I cut 2"-3" off of original wiring that came with fog lights to get the connectors for the fog lights and splice the Leaf wiring just before the fog light connector, then I wrapped connector with electrical tape to keep it just in case. Make sure that you are connecting black new fog light wire with ground wire in old connector, otherwise angel eye will not work.


Now I tapped into parking light line (red wire coming from the big round cover):

Then I tapped into parking lights near main lights assembly under the hood (with quick disconnect) to make a connection to angel eye LED:


Now I butcher the red wire from the wire harness that came with new fog lights, cut it in half and create a cable with quick disconnect on one side and fog light angel eye connector on the other.

The only thing remained is connect the quick disconnect under the hood (there's plenthy of space to throw quick disconnect wire from main light down to fog light on each side ), and connect same colored wires to the new fog light and test it!

Let me know what do you think.

I like it.....nice mod.....even nicer write up.

(It helped to read the thread instead of just looking at the pics because when I came to the bracket schematic and pics, I thought, "nope....too hard....I can't fab those brackets". Then I read that you bought the angle aluminum from Home Depot. I can sure hack saw and drill that to make the brackets.).....Thanks.

I like it too. Well done, that man!

If I was considering doing this, which I likely would if I had not already added LED DRLs, the only change I would make is to wire the Angel Eyes to a power-on source so that they were on like DRLs whenever the car was on.

UkrainianKozak said:

For electrical part I decided to connect angel eyes to parking lights

Click to expand...

dsr302 said:

I like it.....nice mod.....even nicer write up.

(It helped to read the thread instead of just looking at the pics because when I came to the bracket schematic and pics, I thought, "nope....too hard....I can't fab those brackets". Then I read that you bought the angle aluminum from Home Depot. I can sure hack saw and drill that to make the brackets.).....Thanks.

Click to expand...

Yep, I just used a regular caliper, angle grinder and regular drill to make it, you can do it with hack saw as well and use pliers to bend/break off the tab cutoff. Vise will greatly help as well (C-clamps should be fine too).
The plastic bumper and mounts along with some wiggle room in big holes allows for some imperfections. My holes were 2-3mm off because of big drill bit wondering off center, so even with that I was able to perfectly mount both lights from the first try.

I was putting off this project for some time to allow time to make adapters, but at the end most time-consuming operation was to put bottom shield screws back... I did not have shallow sockets, and the screws kept getting off of thread and falling down the socket... that was the most frustrating part , but after repeating it again and again I was able to hand-thread it enough... But it might be just my leaf... I had one of the screws with half-balded thread and another one so much off-center that it actually chewed the side of the shield's hole... Someone must've been in real hurry to assemble it at the factory...

Great thread. Found the exact information I was looking for to get access to my fog lights on my SL. Putting in 6000K HID's.

Also found great parking light leds! Awesome recommendation, just the kind I was looking for.

Don't bother with the Polarg 194 hyper white halogen bulbs. They are not bright at all.


P.S. That garage is pimpin'