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<<< Dodge Dynasty Headlight Installation >>> |
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Theory: I once heard someone mention that Dodge Dynasty headlights are the same width as Euro headlights for a MK2 Scirocco. Well, it stuck in my head ever since, and one day while I was in the junkyard, I decided to buy a set and give it a try. Here's what I did to make them fit: |
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| (Click for larger images) | |
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The headlights themselves. When you get them off a junkyard car, they'll have a plastic frame behind them (blue arrows) which serves as a mount for them (and to make them adjustable). Don't worry about breaking this part, as you will cut it off in the next step anyway - otherwise the lights won't fit. |
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Around the plastic housing of the Dynasty headlight assembly are various drain tubes and plastic brackets (green arrows). You'll want to cut all of these off for a good fit. Basically, you want the entire area of the plastic housing to be flush. The picture shows the top of the lights. |
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And here's the bottom of the lights. Green arrows represent what you need to cut off. |
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Now for the brackets... Take out the sealed beams (blue arrows), and remove the smaller brackets which hold the sealed beams into place (green arrows). If you have to cut some of the adjustment screws to do so, don't worry about it, you won't be able to use them anyway. |
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The blue shaded areas represent where metal was cut from the bracket. If you're using a Dremel tool, invest in some reinforced cutting wheels for this part. You'll also need to cut the tops off of the little metal towers that the lower trim piece screws into, and then bend the remaining pieces of metal together to avoid injury (look at the green arrows in the picture to understand this). Use a deburring bit to clean up any remaining sharp edges on the brackets. The headlights will now fit, but they won't stay in place without some sort of way to secure them to the brackets... |
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This is the trickiest part, where some guesswork is required. Mount the modified bracket on the car (with the corner lens in place to make sure everything fits ok). Slip the Dynasty headlight into the bracket and have someone hold it for you. Step back 20 feet or so, and check to make sure it's straight and seems to be in the right place (this is the guesswork). Once you're confident of its positioning, make some marks on the headlights relative to the brackets, so that when the brackets are off the car, you know where the headlights are supposed to sit in them. Make sure your marks are accurate and readable/understandable, otherwise, your lights are going to be pointed wrong. |
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Take the bracket off the car again. With the headlight EXACTLY where it should sit in the bracket, drill a very small hole through the top of the headlight assembly, right up against a flat part of the bracket. Now drill a small hole through the bottom of the headlight assembly, right against the bracket, and straight down from the hole on top. The point of this is to run a small rod vertically through the headlight assembly, then clip the rod to the bracket. Drilling near the center of the headlight means you will be able to adjust the headlights horizontally. If this sounds confusing, take a look at the picture and you should be able to understand what's going on. |
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These are the clips I used to hold the rod against the bracket. You'll need to drill a hole in the bracket and use a nut and bolt to hold the clip tightly against the bracket. The rod I used was a 1/8" size, the smallest available. All of these parts can be found at your local hardware store. I'm sure there are other ways this can be done. If you think of a better way, give it a try! |
| With the headlights mounted tightly on the brackets, put everything back on the car again. Check to see that you did a good job aiming the headlights. If the lights are pointed wrong horizontally (i.e. too far left or right), just give them a firm push in the right direction - they should rotate a bit. If they're off vertically, you'll have to remove the rods holding the headlight to the bracket, drill the hole on the headlights a bit larger, remount everything, tilt the headlights properly, then put some silicon sealer over the hole to keep the lights in place. (Whew!) | |
| To keep the lights from moving around in the brackets, I put some double-sided tape on the brackets to serve as padding. | |
| OK, they're mounted. Now for the wiring. For the corner lights, just cut the Dynasty connector off, and extend the wires, then splice them into the factory VW corner light wiring. It doesn't hurt to connect them wrong, so just experiment until you get them to function properly. | |
| For the headlight wiring, I suggest using a relay system. Older VWs have weak wiring, and using 65W bulbs with factory wires is a sure way to melt your headlight switch pretty quick. Patrick Bureau has a good technical article of relaying lights, complete with wiring diagrams and pictures, that can be found here: Relaying your Head Lights. The only difference is that we're connecting to Dodge headlight bulbs, not Euro lights. | |
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Step back and bask in the glory of your final product. ;) |
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