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Headlight adapters

Acer4LO

Well-Known Member
Messages
761
Location
Illinois
Good luck.

May want to just print your own?

Please for the love of god do not use this crappy adapter. This was a prototype made like 7 years ago that was never actually used by the guy who made it, but somehow new H3 owners keep finding and think it is a free cheap alternative. Let me explain all the reasons why this is a completely inferior design. I am not discouraging you from printing your own stuff, but this current adapter design is extremely poor and needs to be redesigned because currently it has A LOT of problems.

1.) No retaining ring is used to hold this headlight in place. The way this terrible adapter holds the headlight in place is by using 2 holes on the side of the adapter and you screw in some screws to put pressure on it. It is possible that your headlight can pop out of the adapter if you go over a bump because the headlight is not that well secured in place. The 7in seal beam headlight has been around for decades and it always uses a retaining ring to keep it in place. That was how it was designed to be used, so why use an inferior way to hold it in place?

2.) This adapter does not make use of the 3 alignment tabs that are found on the back of 7in headlights. Again, this adapter ignores all the principles of how the 7” were designed to mount in all other vehicles that come 7” headlights. It is important to have an adapter that you can seat in these 3 tabs found on the headlight so the headlight does not rotate and become crooked. Also it makes it much easier to orientate the headlight in to the correct position when installing.

3.) These adapters are made out of a single piece which is not a good idea. Once you put the headlight adapter on, its not ever going to be able to come off. If you were to pull it off, it would most likely break the studs on the adapter. 3D printed material is not strong enough to withstand that amount of force needed to take it off. In fact, if you are not careful, you can break the studs off the OEM headlight housing because of how GM designed this headlight assembly.

4.) Different sized headlights may not work. This adapter was modeled around a single headlight and multiple headlights were never tested to fit. This is a HUGE problem because the inner diameter of this headlight adapter was specifically matched to the 7” headlight that designer was using for his project. Not all 7in headlights have the same sizing in the back, so it is possible that some headlights could be smaller or larger so the fitment will not be correct.

5.) These headlights were never actually used by the original designer. The guy who originally made this adapter abandoned the project and opted to a different headlight setup. Because these headlights were never actually used, these are basically just a prototype. As a result, no design changes or improvements were ever made to these adapters, so no real world experience was incorporated into the design. Since this guy who made them never did a redesign, it is possible that the new 7in headlight would sit too high or too low in relation to the grille headlight hole. That also goes for the left and right positioning as well. These headlight adapters need careful and precise positioning so the new 7” headlight looks like it is perfectly center in the grille headlight hole or it will look off. I have seen people try and mount these 7” headlights on their H3 without using the right adapter and it is easy to tell because they are crooked and off center.
 
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