Well today I got a wild hair up my behind and decided to go ahead and try to tackle this. Took my clear aftermarket lights off the Blazer and threw some stock ones back on while I finish the job (knew I wouldn't get it done today...). Not going to do any painting to anything, just leaving it all chrome. In the end it should all blend in and almost look like a factory light, which is what I like to go for actually.

Started as I always have when I retrofit, strip the lights down to nothing but the back housing and front lens, removing every screw, clip, and bracket that can be removed.





I could tell from the start that some cutting to recess the projector into the light was going to be a must. There's maybe 3 1/2 inches of depth from the lens to the back of the reflector housing, not NEAR enough for the Morimoto Mini H1 7.0's I'm using, so the simple and quick threaded on nut method was out of the question unfortunately.










So I preheated the oven to 250, baked the lights for about 7 minutes, popped them open, and then confirmed, definitely NOT going to just drop in and fit lol.








I busted out the Dremel and got to work. A couple minutes later I had a hole large enough to recess the projector into and get it to sit nice and flat and flush inside the light housing.

What it started like on the left, and after cutting on the right.






Notice the extra little notch needed in the bottom corner to clear the plug for the solenoid that switches the projector between high and low beam.













Then I proceeded to trim up the shrouds so they would fit into the light. Not a lot of cutting needed on these, just a little clearance needed on the top and bottom of the shroud.











Got them aligned and I'm letting them sit in place with a couple dabs of Quicksteel putty to temporarily lock them in before slathering them with JB Weld to permanently lock the projector to the light. I'll do that after I reinstall the lights temporarily and make sure the alignment of the projectors is acceptable.







These will not be show quality by any means. I'm using my 4 year old used aftermarket headlights and some used projectors I pulled out of a set of headlights I found in a junk yard. But I'm not going for show quality, I'm going to pure light output performance, which these will outperform ANY drop in HID bulb or bolt on aftermarket headlight assembly. I am curious to see however how my brush guard effects the beam pattern though... may have to cut some bars of it lol... we shall see...

 

What kind of price tag you looking to apply to these setups? 😜

 

We'll figure that out if all goes well

Trust me I've thought about it, building custom headlight assemblies and selling them locally. Be a fun little side business, possibly a pretty lucrative one too.

In the end the price would all come down the cost of goods really. You can go all out with $120 Morimoto projectors or cheaper with $20 eBay projectors. I've used both, and honestly they both perform great, you can just see the obvious better build quality in the higher dollar ones. Also the price of the light assemblies. Unfortunately for the S10's and Blazers, OEM lights are not an option since they have the ribbed (fluted) lens which is going to kill the cut-off beam of the projector, so you pretty much have to go with aftermarket light assemblies that have a clear lens, and price is going to vary on those... But with those there's even more options for customization like blacked out internals and smoked lenses

The set I made for my Tacoma years ago, when I sold the truck I pulled them off and put stock lights back in it, listed the headlights on a Toyota forum's classifieds I was on, and sold them within a day for almost $500 (I would NEVER ask that for retrofitted Blazer/S10 lights lol)





Made another $250 for some I made for my Corolla

 

I seen them on another thread. I would pay for your work for sure. But my problem is none local, canada, but I do do road trips! Our blazer has been to Florida twice so far. And I think she rather be there then here in ontario lol.

I'll be keeping an eye on these so dont hold out!

p.s.

caddy seats?

 

I'm tripping over them in the garage, they're coming lol

 

These are sick!

You make it look so easy.

 

Thanks

eh, each one is a learning process, they're all a little different from the last. But I enjoy it!

Hoping to wrap them up this weekend. Just hard to mess with it during the week after working 11 1/2 hours a day...

 

Well I didn't finish them over the weekend, but I did put a little more time into them.

Had to do some surgery to the mounting bracket to assemble it back to the light.










Even after that they're still not just a "bolt on". The projectors sit so far back that I have to clearance the radiator support a little so the rear of the bulb has room.








So far I've only done this on the driver's side, and I still need to clearance a little more to add some downward adjustment room, but I needed more bits for my Dremel...






Will update as I progress further!

 

I like the mods that look like they could have been factory; clean and blend in. Nice work!

 

Looking good... keep it up...