dagle

Well, being that this is my last semester at CC and I just finished this past week, I find myself with more time on my hands to do automotive/motorcycle related stuff. Over the years, I've collected a wealth of S2000 parts. In hopes of coming across the right combination of headlight parts that I would be able to make franken headlights. In the past 3-4 years I haven't been able to get a single AP2 backhousing (the black plastic piece of the housing that the tabs are on) in useable condition. Since I'm moving in a couple months, I began cleaning up and saw the heap of parts I need to get rid of, so I decided that I had nothing to lose by attempting this little project. It consisted of parts from probably 6-8 S2000 housings, but for someone that wants to try to pursue this you'll need a good pair of AP1 housings and 1 busted/broken pair of AP2's. This thread was simply for reference, I may not even finish it because in all honesty, I don't care and I was bored with nothing to do today haha .


Parts needed:
AP1 headlight housings in the condition you want your headlights to be in (free of haze, tabs intact)
AP2 headlight housings in bad condition (broken tabs, f@#ked up lenses etc. as long as the projector shroud and black inner pieces are OK)

Tools needed:
-I was bored and didn't want to dig out the right tools so I made do with what was within 10 feet of me. Heatgun, flathead screwdriver, phillips head screwdriver, garden shears, and a boxcutter.

I would suggest a dremel and drill with various attachments in addition to my ghetto setup. I simply didn't care because I have more AP1 housings to mess with later.

Step1: Remove the external headlight lenses, that's the clear lens that usually hazes up or turns yellow. Either put them in the oven at 250-300 degrees for 5-10 minutes to loosen the sealant, or use a heatgun like me. I don't care for things that won't be seen so I gouge the shit out of them only taking care not to scratch the part that will be seen. Do this for all the headlights. This is what you should be looking at (AP1 btw):


So in comparison to the AP2, the projectors are the exact same external physical dimensions/mounting points, high beams are identical, and the tabs are in the same location, and the external clear lenses are the same aside from the little detail marks. That leaves only the internal headlight pieces to make up for the differences. Here's the AP2 on the same side:


So as you can see, the clear reflector bowls for the AP2 are in an area that the AP1 housing's won't allow. That leads to step 2: cut that bitch out.

Step2:



So after cutting it to the bottom guiding line (the line that's apparent on both AP1 and AP2 housings), you can start mocking up your front housing and internal pieces. The reflector bowl top screw lines up to a dummy screwhole on the AP1.

The hole circled in red are in identical places between AP1 and AP2, so use that as the guide for swapping the signal reflector bowls.




Here's how they line up front/back (obviously didn't seal them yet so they're not flush).


rearview shweeet!


that's it for now, i'll see if I have more time these next few days to finish. At this point it looks like I might be able to save the top portion of the AP1 backhousing simply by drilling an angle that allows the bulb socket to sit in the reflector bowl, then drilling a separate hole to line up with the smaller lamp (forgot which is called which)





-Still under construction-

Noodler

too much work

dagle

if you think about it and know what's involved, it's really only about an hour of work lol... cutting the hole there is the most time consuming part which wasn't bad at all. Also I'm going based on what I think will work, worst case scenario i'll just cut the entire bowl part out of the AP2 and plastic weld (melt) it onto the AP1 which is guaranteed to work but I'd like to try this first so I won't have to deal with aligning it.

closetgeek

^ thanks for the write up dagle.

i think i've got a majority of the parts to do this. ive always wondered how to do it.

maybe we can sticky this in the DIY section?

dagle

can we not? lol this isn't exactly a good display of my "attention to detail" or fine craftsmanship hahaha

RaiderFanS2K

Wow! Good stuff Dagle! Very impressive.

tkeyyy

headlight party at dagles house

FromaDB2toanAP1

Haha nice work! Have you figured out what you're going to use to fill the section you cut? On my brother's broken headlight, we used dynamat and sealed the edges with silicone. So far, no condensation.

dagle

I was gonna use the other headlight housings that I had.

insanelys2k

i was looking for something like this for a long time... great write~up