HELP! Chang Headlight Bulb

TimG517 · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 7:42 am

So, I got bored last night. I found some headlight bulbs that I purchased 2 years ago off of EBay. They are supposedly HID.

So, I took out the regular bulbs, put the new bulbs in. I couldn't get the new bulbs to go into the lens good enough. It was getting dark. I turned on the headlights to give me some light. Well, one of the HID bulbs started smoking.

I then decided it was getting late, and just wanted to put the regular bulbs back in.

I got the passanger side bulb in no issues.

The drives side will not go in. That grey ring around the base - does it go over the bulb with the "teeth" up or the "teeth" down?

Is there something I can take off to make getting to the drives side easier? Any help? I currently have 2 fog lights and one headlight.

Oh yea, it is a 2002 Limited.

TimG517 · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 9:30 am

Any tips here guys?

Jeepjeepster · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 9:40 am

The ring can be tricky to get in since its kinda tight in that area. You could take the battery and fuse box out to give you a little more room.

Hopefully those bulbs didnt get really hot and melt the housing or something crazy like that.

bobcat7 · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 11:12 am

Did you touch the glass on the bulb. Oils form our skin will cause the bulb to burn out quickly and possibly smoke. If they have a seoerate ballast they are HID, if not they are like HID but not true HID.

TimG517 · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 11:18 am

I had gloves on while touching the bulbs.

If my headlight were to go out though, would it be this difficult to change? Or, like my old XJ, would I just replace the whole head light?

Jeepjeepster · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 3:54 pm

I think youve already found out that you can replace the bulb without needing to replace the entire housing.

You cannot just change out the housing on a kj like you can a XJ. You can change it out but its $$ for the housing and its not really needed unless something is wrong with it.

Hood297 · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 5:34 pm

I took my whole headlight out to change it. its much easier than trying to snake back in there to get to the bulb.

Just take the 4 trox screws out of the top of your grille, then pull it out and there are two more torx screws on each headlight, then it just pulls out. It gives you alot more room and you can see what your doing.

TimG517 · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 6:51 pm

Thanks guys.

Taking the 4 hex scres out and the 4 hex screws in the two headlights was easy! Thanks again.

Oh yea, how do you line these headlights up?

Dje Ryu · **Posted:** Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:19 am

I usually just find a nice empty back road and aim to my liking but that's an easy thing to find, for me. Try putting a chalk line on a wall and parking about 5 feet away and aim your lights at the line, take a drive and see how they work, if they're too high, lower the chalk line an inch or so (or raise it if they're too low) and readjust your headlights to the line and take another drive; keep doing this until you find a height that works for you. measure the height of the line, how far you are from the wall... and you'll always know where to set your lights at. A good rule to start measuring from is about 5 degrees down. From 5 feet away from the wall, make your first chalk-line 5.25 inches below the height of your headlights (on the low beam setting). Of course this was all taught to me by my mom who learned from her father whom was an aircraft mechanic in the Air Force, stationed in Guam... but, it's worked on every vehicle I've ever owned.

Dje Ryu · **Posted:** Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:30 am

btw, I don't believe there is a setting for horizontal (side-to-side) adjustment on our KJs, but should you have a vehicle that does, you can also set a chalk-line (or parking cone) on the driveway in front of the wall to line your tire up on, along with a vertical reference line (about the center of the vehicle) on the wall to set the horizontal. It's considered "polite" to keep the horizontal plane referenced to the driving side of the road... ie: in America, we aim our lights to center and right; in countries that drive on the left side of the road, center and left. I hope all that makes sense (I had a couple beers with the guys after work tonight)

HELP! Chang Headlight Bulb

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