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It appears, that you're car (either a late 04, or early 05) still received the headlights with stepper motors. You do realize, you don't need them if the air suspension is working correctly. You can just replace the other ballast and everything would be right with the world again
Ah, I assumed that dip down and up that the headlights do when you start the car was some systems check to see if that function was working. Thank you for the clarification.
Whether or not the air suspension is working correctly is a good question. I believe it works but the ride height in the front seems a bit higher than it should so I need to get it to someone with SDD (or whatever it's called) diagnostic system to get all that checked out. I found a good post in this forum to help with that.
Thank you again and good luck to the Red Raiders this weekend!
Jkent, i had a similar issue. I replaced both of my ballasts and ended up having an air suspension fault even though the cars ride height was fine! I only needed to replace one ballast so I put the good 12 pin one back in and the fault went away and self leveling function returned!
ETA- That's interesting, thank you for the information, it's always good to hear other folks experiences with similar issues. I need to do some more research to learn a bit more about this car and it appears. For now the old LAD5G ballast that I switched back to seems to be hanging in there and hopefully it will until I get a chance to investigate further.
I am having problems with both of my lights (L&R) the left will not work (good fuze and new bulb) right going off & on now. I am going to check over the grounds. GREAT POST!!! This is why we all need to do the homework before we go and rip things apart and or spend $$$ that we do not need to!!! I thought the bulb was bad on the left side, BUT NO. I think it will be the ballast. Strange that this worked ok when I went it look at the car but 2 days later(after I brought it home) it stoped working This is not all I had problems with. I spent 3!!! DAYS!!! 16 hrs worth of time to get the dammed lug bolts of the car. I still love this car!! my car has 79,825 miles on it now and is a 2004 XJR. So the ballast thing sounds right. I will post what I find.
Hi an thanks despite the age of those posts here
those 40 min reading were perfect and real fun to go through .
got to get ballast for my 2003/05 xj8 now with the stepper motor
I ll be posting soon again
old ballast in left lamp is from 02. 2003 good for apparently 2000hours
well the car is from 05. 2003 and made so far 337500km/208000 miles on original ballast
Hi there this is what i found unplugging the connector to the headlight of the left side since i had everything ready changed the bulbs, the ballast , cleaned
drilled a hole through the broken stud , cleaned all other connections as well.
took the whole bumper of , cleaned that one *** well especially where the clips are meant to hold .
install this afternoon
Great write-up and a note from me regarding taking the headlights off and the bumper:
There's absolutely no need, whatsoever, to undo the splash guard and the parking lamp indicator; the former is not attached to the bumper in cover in any way, and the latter has no bearing on the procedure (your step 1)
Similarly, no need to take out the underskirt-to-bumper screws
The 12-pin LAD5G version previously had an SCP and/or CAN connection(s to the air suspension ECU, depending on the particular model. It used that signal to operate the servo unit inside the headlights, to achieve height adjustment. Now; I've had error messages on the dash of a few 2004 & 2005 X350s when doing a conversion like this, including an air suspension failure and light range error messages. That's because the extra pins carried back CAN/SCP messages regarding height and health of the modules, back to the relevant buss. The only way to resolve these had been to reconfigure the car, so that it accounts for the LAD5GL, and not to look for these bus messages (I used the Autel MaxySys for this - Mongoose just doesn't do it; you'll need a tool which is or is similar to the Jag VCS, which the Autel is).
All that's needed is undo the grill screws, the bumper tabs underneath the bonnet, and to pry out the bumper from the wing, with a plastic trim removal tool. You'll comfortably, and easily have enough space to take the headlight units out and put them back in without much effort.
Still, takes nothing away from your write-up or advise on conversion, the great documentation and the parts list.
Just a note?
With that kind of corrosion in the electrical plugs I have found DeOxIt will dissolve all the white/green deposits without scrubbing. Just spray and let it work a bit and then I blow it all dry with compressed air. This stuff is VERY good and all the other contact cleaners I have used will not dissolve the crud like this will.
10-15-2014, 08:54 AM
This is not all I had problems with. I spent 3!!! DAYS!!! 16 hrs worth of time to get the dammed lug bolts of the car. I still love this car!! my car has 79,825 miles on it now and is a 2004 XJR. So the ballast thing sounds right. I will post what I find.
