Installing the Autolamps
Online Two Piece HID System
by Panasonic Into my
1996 993.
Contributed by : Bill
Needy
Allegheny Region PCA
This picture shows the location of the
mounting holes (ignore the drill dust...) The Panasonic ballast comes with
three mounting
tabs and some heavy adhesive on the back
courtesy of AO. The adhesive does not work well in this application as
height is
needed to clear miscellaneous grommets
and contours, and... as the tabs would make for a much more professional
looking
installation. Taking the tape off was
lots of fun as it is really sticky. Note the headlamp adjuster access tab
shown at the top left.
This needed to be trimmed to clear the
connector for the igniter.
This picture shows that the holes needed
to be just a smidgeon back away from the large wiring grommet, as it is
bigger on the
back than the front. I was able to make
my holes work as I had used small-headed Allen head cap screws, but moving
the ballast
a little further away would have been
better. Drill VERY slowly and carefully in this area. DO NOT let the drill
rip into wiring or
other expensive systems...
Mounting hardware is straight from Home
Depot. Quantities shown are for each side.
· (3) 8mm x 30 mm x 1.5 inch Allen
headed stainless steel cap screws. (These need to be cut down to 1.25.
I used
a Dremel and several cutoff wheels.)
· (3) ½ nylon spacers
· (6) Flat stainless steel washers
· (3) Self locking (nylon insert)
stainless steel nuts
Cap screws are installed with the nuts
inside the trunk. See the following pics to view on the installed ballast.
A new X-acto knife was used to surgically
open the wiring harness and expose the headlamp power wire. This ran along
the top
of the wiring bundle.The orange and brown
wires from the ballast/igniter connection (left above) is cut leaving enough
wire to
both splice into the headlamp assembly
wiring and to a salvaged portion of the red/black sheathed wires from the
unneeded
wiring harness/relay that came with the
system. See next picture.
A professional looking installation. The
wires are looped behind the mounted ballast. The opened wiring harness
was re-taped,
with black electrical tape, as were all
exposed wires.
Note the trimmed headlamp adjuster access
tab shown at the top left center. This was to clear the adjacent connector
for the
wiring that runs to the igniter
If I could have located the proper ground
wire, I could have saved a little work by tapping into these wires back
at the wiring
harness adjacent the ballast. However,
it was nearly impossible to locate it as the bundle had lots of brown ground
wires; I
instead chose extend the igniter wiring
using a piece of the red/black sheathed wires from the unneeded relay wiring
harness.
These pass through the large rubber grommet
into the headlamp area of the inner fender and follows the existing headlamp
wiring harness. See the previous picture.
It is tied to the existing headlamp wiring harness with plastic wire ties.
The wires into the connector above were
cut and spliced to the igniter wiring extension using wire crimps. The
connections and
the ends of the still live yellow/black
wire and ground will be covered in shrink tubing. See next picture.
This grommet was removed from the HID capsule
wiring as it was not needed. Each side of the grommet was opened using
the
X-acto knife and blade shown, with the
back of the blade against the wire.
The igniter is mounted using the Autolamps
Online furnished adhesive, in the same location where the factory Litronic
igniter is
mounted. As you can see, there is more
wiring to hide than desired as the high tension leads from the igniter
to the HID capsules
cannot be cut.
The satisfied and happy 911 owner/driver
in his hobby shop.