European Headlights and Clear Corners

The History

    For a couple years now I had wanted to get clear corners for my 323.  My searches on the internet had turned up nothing except for a couple pictures of 323s from outside North America that were lucky enough to have them.  I'm sure no companies in the U.S. would bother to make them because only a small percentage of us own 323s and an even smaller percentage would even want clear corners.  I thought all was lost.

    When I visited Corksport's storefront in Portland Oregon during the summer of 2000,  one of the many things I picked their brains about were clear corners.  They then proceeded to tell me about how almost all the 323s from '86-'89 (the years I was interested in) that were not from North America had clear corners standard.  I was then shown a full headlight assembly for the Japanese 323.  Indeed it had clear corners except for a small amber reflector on the side.  When I asked if I could buy it, I was told this headlight assembly had been sold to someone else and that if I wanted one it would cost me around $400 to import it from Japan.  I think I'll pass... for now.  I told them if they could find a used set no higher than $200 that they'd have a deal.  They had no luck.

    It would have been so much easier if the Japanese clear corners could have been a direct swap for my amber ones.  The problem was that the Japanese corner, and every other non-American one for that matter was wider by about an inch, so there was no way you could just swap the corners.  If you wanted the clear corners, you were going to half to get the headlights also.  I had seen a picture of a some guy's GTX where he had gotten clear corners from Venezuela and cut off that extra inch in width to make them fit.  I didn't think I could risk doing that. 

    Finding someone to send me a complete 323 headlight assembly for $200 is tough, even for an plain American one.  At the website where I bought my grille, they wanted $114 for a headlight and $70 for an amber corner, and that's just for one side.  When I replaced my right rear tail lamp in '95, because of a crack that was letting water in, the dealership wanted $300 for a new one.  I settled on $80 for a used one from the junkyard.  I knew getting a foreign headlight assembly was not going to be cheap.

    My only option was to ask any of my friends that were going over seas to keep their eyes open for used 323 clear corners.  When that didn't pan out I asked my cousin that lived in Sweden to hook me up.  But he wasn't a car guy so he didn't know where to look.  I saw a website in Sport Compact Car that would import J.D.M. parts.  J.D.M. is the equivalent of our O.E.M. parts.  I think it stands for Japan Domestic Market.  But they only answered my e-mail request with "part not found".  This was around June of 2001.

    The nice thing about having a website is the ability to talk to all the people from the U.S. and around the world who share your interest in 323s.  Friendships are made and connections are born.  It was through this that I was able to discover a certain European country where brand new headlight assemblies could be had for only $150.  Dirt cheap!  But I had to make it worth it for this person to buy and ship it to me.  All it took was $200 and a pair of clear turn signals in return for the full European-spec headlight assembly.

Installation

    There was always a thought in the back of my mind that the headlights wouldn't fit when I got them.  $200 was a lot of money to waste if this didn't work out.  But I had to take a chance.  The day came and I tore open the box.  When I measured the Euro headlights I was relieved to fit out that it was the same overall width and height as my stock ones.  

    I had a couple initial impressions.  Unlike the Japanese corners, these had no amber reflector on the side.  And a closer inspection, not even a clear reflector.  Theses are definitely illegal in the U.S.  The headlights themselves were much clearer and the casing was made out of black plastic instead of metal.  This made the headlight much lighter which is always a plus.  

    The big problem I noticed was that the normal American 323 headlight bulb (9004) was not going to fit in these headlights.  The common bulb in Europe and Japan is the H4 bulb which has different metal prongs than the 9004.  This meant I had to buy H4 bulbs and H4 sockets to plug the bulbs into, if this stuff even existed in the States.  Luckily Napa Auto Parts  saved the day.  After 15 minutes of them looking through their shelves, they come up with the last two H4 bulb sockets they had.  I was also told H4 bulbs existed in the U.S. but they were only single filament and meant for motorcycles.  It turned out that what I wanted was the 9003 bulb which is equivalent to the European H4.  Leave it to the Americans to change the name of something to make it confusing for everyone else.

The European H4 bulb is on the left and the 9004 is one the right:

    Before you do anything that involves electricity you'll want to disconnect the negative wire from the battery terminal to ovoid a short or a shock.  To install the new bulb socket I had to cut of the old one and just splice the wires to the new one.  There's three wires, one for the ground, one for the low beams, and one for the high beams.  The wires weren't to thick so it was pretty easy to splice them together.

The 9004 bulb socket is on the left and the H4 bulb socket is on the right, notice the different layout of the holes:

I think I can have a backup career as a hand model.

   You can do the wiring first or wait until you have the headlights installed.  With any halogen bulb you want to be careful not to touch the glass part because oils from your hand can cause it to over heat and burn out.  If you do accidentally touch it, you can clean it with some rubbing alcohol.

    The first thing you want to do in the headlight installation is to pop the hood and take off the grille.  There's these little quick release tabs the grille that you have to press or you could just yank it off like I did, not knowing about the quick release tabs.

Your headlight should look like this:

    The  first thing you'll want to unscrew is the amber corner light.  There are only two screws holding it in and they're hard to miss.  Unscrew them and wiggle the lens until it comes off.  Save the screws for the new corners

You'll then need to remove the plastic molding that is found between the lens and the bumper.  Now would be a good time to repaint this piece if you like.  I think eventually I'll paint mine the body color.  Don't loose these screws as you'll need them for reinstallation.

  I've shown the screw locations with arrows:

    There are two bolts on each side of the headlight that will need to be removed.  A socket wrench works best for this.  The bolts came off easily event though they were slightly rusted.  The new headlights were nice enough to come with some nice new black bolts so I did not need to save the  old ones.

I've labeled the bolt locations with arrows:

    The headlight should come off pretty easily if the bulb is disconnected.  Now would be a good time to clean off any dirt of rust.  Since the European headlights are skinnier than the American ones, you aren't able to use the same screw holes on the outside part of the light.  Luckily the Euro holes are already there and threaded so you don't have to drill new ones.  Make sure the old holes are not plugged with dirt or paint.

I've labeled the holes in the picture.  A-spec stand for American specification, and the E stands for European:

    Now all you got to do is work backwards with the new lights.  So screw on the headlight, the molding, the clear corner, reinstall the grille, reconnect the battery and if it's dark, re-aim the headlights.  As easy as 1-2-3... OK, not really, but close.

The finished product:

    I was presently surprised when I turned on the headlights when it was dark.  These lights really have a cool beam pattern.  There is a pronounced cut off, much like the projector headlights found on the '94 and up Integra and the Audi A4.  But that cut off is only found on the left side of the beam pattern as not to offend oncoming drivers.  On the right side the beam angles up from left to right to light  more area to the driver.  I tried to take a picture of this but it didn't turn out.  The limitations of my digital camera are becoming more apparent.

    To complete the look I replaced the headlight bulbs, clear corner bulbs, and side marker bulbs with hyper white ones.

The End