hi fellas, well i was curious in what recently happened to my Z, there's been heavy storms in Texas passed week or so (4th of july comming and this sucks)... anyways...

the front right plastic cover (splasher) that protects the headlights... fell off when i went through a big puddle, there was no way around the damn pond traveling through West Dallas...

the next day i noticed my right headlight starting to fog and worst the HID bulb wasn't turning on. high beam does but not regular. i called the dealer to order the plastic cover... $50.00... not sure where to proceed about the whole bulb issue? Should I take it to a bodyshop and get the headlight cleared up? ... fog is still in the headlight and it looks nasty... anyone ecounter my same situation...

PD: nice forums hope to hang around here often... greetings from Dallas

 

It's going to be tough to clean the inside of a headlight.

Can you be more specific about what fell off? The inner fender?

 

Well the weather finely took its toll on my explorer’s fog lights.

12 years OEM (Stock light as well) finely got hit with too much water and finely got inside and rusted the leads to the bulb.

Once water gets inside it does nasty damage unless you can stop it. It ruined my fog light (all the reflective stuff is gone) in about 12 days :/

Oh well, KC 26 Series are on the way.

If you can find a way to clean it, or something I would :/

Love all the rain in Dallas, then again I drive a SUV and I am strange that way.

 

I have the cover. Don't pay 50 bucks. PM sent.

 

BTW it's your ballast that is bad in all likelihood. Do some parts sawpping from side to side and see what happens. Oh I also have a stock 4300K D2R bulb with 19,000 miles on it.

 

yes... the inner fender fell off... did some research... haha i saw how complicated this can be... i might as well buy me a halo conversion kit while im at it...

ill keep looking and ask a few bodyshops... this is my first nissan car... been german car owner need some reputable nissan shops in the dallas area...anyone? this is the part that im talking about...

 

He's right. You probably fried the ballast. If you turn it on with standing water sitting on that plug you'll fry the thing (done it myself).

You can usually find a ballast for ~$60 bucks on ebay.

 

I can actually repair most ballasts. It's a transformer inside it that burns apart. Theyre a pain in the ***** to get apart though. they're also filled with this brown silicon goo... If you want to send it to me, I'll repair it for 20 bucks + return shipping. If its irrepairable, I'll just send it back.

 

yea you're right phreaktor.... most likely it is the ballast been looking for them on ebay now. i went to the dealer and their easiest solution was to replace the whole HID headlight + labor = very expensive.

i was thinking of upgrading the stock 4300K D2R bulbs w/ 8000K bulbs w/ ballasts? let me get this clear the bulbs are apart from the ballasts and I have no need of buying new ballasts if i get 8000k bulbs (or any other intensity) ??.

ill be working on the car on friday phreaktor thanks for the offer ill be looking into it depending on what happens.

but my question, why do high beams seem to work?

here's a picture of the nasty headlight....

 

The bulb and ballast are two seperate units. It is most likely that the bulb was fried along with the ballast at the time of the short circuit caused by the water entering the female harness plug on the ballast. Color temperature has no effect on the stock ballast. I am currently running 8000K D2S bulbs in my 04(which are actually intended for the 06 model) and they work just fine with a bit of horizontal splash, which would be expected from a D2S. D2S bulbs are less expensive btw. Your halogen high beams work because they are on a seperate power source from the HID system and they are also less susceptible to short circuits from water. If you want it fixed, I'll have it for a day and get it back to you next day whether it can be fixed or not.

 

ok makes everything much clear now thanks. phreaktor pm sent

BTW found a good tutorial how to remove the headlights on 350z -- tech

 

my bulb stopped working ballast was full of water. i dried it out and now works fine.

 

blknjz so basically just your bulb went out? hopefully my ballast just needs to dry out too.

 

I bought my Z used and later found no cover on inner fender. Shortly after I saw this, the ballast fried. But I looked around on ebay and got a whole light ***'y for about $230 shipped. I had water all on the inside and it was fogging bad, I don't think there's anything else you can do besides buy a new setup.

Tho the new light I got, the bulb is a different color than the other one. Are stock '03 HID lights white in color (once they heat up)? The other light has a slight blue tint to it.