These Morimoto Projector LED Headlights with switchback daytime running lights are for
anyone with a 2007 to 2018 JK that's looking for a headlight that's going to be much, much
brighter than that factory headlight is and also offer a lot of additional features.
And as you can see, also change up the look of the front of the Jeep.
This is gonna be a pretty easy two out of three wrenches for the installation.
The light itself is going to be plug and play, but that switchback DRL is gonna require a
little bit of wiring and we'll show you how to do it in just a second.
So in the world of headlights, there are a couple of different ways that you can upgrade
them to get a little bit more brightness out of them.
You could simply change out the light bulb with a light source in your factory reflector
housings or you can upgrade to something that actually changes that reflector housing to
something like what we have here.
And the idea behind a projector is that you can have a much brighter light because you
have that light very, very controlled so you're not blinding any sort of oncoming traffic.
So these lights, as I already said, look different, are brighter, have additional features, and
we're gonna get into a lot more of that when we have one of these lights side by side with
your factory light.
For a minute, we'll talk a little bit about the price of lights because, again, that's
something that's sort of all over the place.
You can get a set of projector LED headlights for $150 or for $1,000 and these ones are
gonna be somewhere right in the middle right around that $500 mark.
Usually, with a headlight, you get what you pay for.
I feel like these are a really nice balance of both price and quality and overall, I think
they're a pretty good buy.
So like we said, it is a two out of three wrenches for the install.
So let's show you how to do it.
For this install, you'll need a T15 Torx bit.
We drove that with our 3/8 impact.
You also need a trim removal tool and whatever wiring tools you'll use to get your daytime
running lights wired up.
The first step in our two out of three wrench installation is to get the grille removed
from the Jeep.
After that, we can get the headlight retention rings off and swap in our new headlights and
then, of course, we have to wire them.
So in order to get the grille off, there are six plastic clips across the top that we have
to remove with our trim removal tool.
And before we can do that, we have to get the hood popped.
With the six clips across the top removed, there are just some tension clips on the bottom
so you just have to give the grille a little bit of a pull and it will come undone.
Now, the other thing that's gonna be holding the grille onto the Jeep are your turn signal
wires.
So if you do wanna completely set the grille aside, put it in a safe place while you're
working on the headlights, you can just give those sockets for those turn signals a quarter
turn, pull them out, and then set the grille aside.
We're just gonna pull the grille forward a little bit and lean it, that way we can have
access to the bolts we need to remove to get our headlight swapped out.
So we have a T15 Torx bit loaded up in our gun here and we're gonna remove the four Torx
bolts around the outside of the headlight retention ring.
Once the ring's out of the way, the whole headlight housing will come right out.
With all of the screws removed, the headlight will come out and you can unplug it from the
wiring harness.
So we grabbed the chrome headlight retention ring from our factory headlight and we're
gonna set it over top of our new headlight here.
So the retention ring and the headlight both only go into the headlight bucket in one way.
So you might have to rotate them a couple of times to get them to lock in, but that
just keeps you from putting anything in upside down, they'll only go one way.
So before we do that, we are going to plug our new headlight in and we're also going
to fish or other three leads inside of the headlight bucket, that way they're there when
we go to wire things up.
And we'll get our new headlight plugged in here.
Push down the red safety tab and make sure it's gonna stay plugged in for us.
And these three leads we'll just pass through the bucket and out through the bottom here
of the grille and we'll get to wiring those in just a second.
Now we can get our headlight put back in the headlight bucket.
Like I said, it'll only lock in one way, there we go.
And we'll get our ring placed over top and get that rotated so that all of our screw
holes lined up.
And get our small Torx bolts back in place.
These are the three wires that we fished through that come off the back of the headlight and
these are going to be for our daytime running lights and our turn signal.
So the white wire is the one we wanna power for our daytime running light.
We're gonna take power off of our parking light for that.
The orange wire is going to be the amber for the turn signal and this blue wire, what this
does is dim down the daytime running light.
So if we didn't want them quite as bright, we would apply 12 volts to this while applying
12 volts to this and we could have that light be a little bit dimmer.
We're not going to be using the blue wire in our application today, so we'll set that
one aside.
As you can see, these wires do come pre-terminated with male spade connectors on the back of
them.
So what we have here on our Jeep, our female spade connector's already connected to the
wires that come off of this front turn signal and parking light.
So we have the yellow wire here connected to the turn signal, which is going to be the
brighter side of this bulb and that one's going to flash.
The other one here is connected to the running light side of this bolt and that just stays
on constant when we have the parking lights or the headlights on.
So we're gonna be able to tap into these two connections with our wires to get everything
wired up.
Now, depending on how you decide to do things, you can wire yours in very much the same way,
just have some small pigtails with some female connectors here or you could cut and splice
your wires, use butt splicers, solder, however you decide to make your connections.
All right, we can tidy up some of this wiring and move on to the other side.
Here we have one of our new Morimoto headlights installed with one factory Jeep headlight
and you can really see the difference between the two when you have them side by side like
this.
The Jeep we're working on does have those normal reflector halogen headlights in it.
Some of the very late model JKs, they had the option for an LED headlight, but the vast
majority of you are gonna have this on your JK and it's not going to be that great of
a headlight.
The JKs and past generations' really known for not producing a ton of light from the
headlight and that's what makes an aftermarket headlight as great of an upgrade for so many
of you.
So you can see with the Morimoto headlight, the first thing you'll notice is that visually,
it looks different.
So you're going to have a black background behind four projectors where here you have
one big silver reflector, so that's going to be very different.
What you can't really see it until the lights are on is that in the upper and lower quadrants
of that light between those projectors, that's where the daytime running light and also the
swiftback turn signal are going to light up.
So it is a pretty cool light, very functional, but also has that aesthetic appearance difference
as well.
So with an LED headlight, you're going to have a much brighter light that's also going
to be a lot more controlled, thanks to those projectors that are in that light.
So over here, you have a reflector.
You can only control the light so much so the light can only be so bright.
With the LED, you have a really crisp, clean cutoff and actually a step in the light as
well, which is a hallmark of a higher quality projector and that means you can have a ton
of very bright light because it's all exactly where you need it below that cutoff, not blinding
oncoming traffic, which obviously, you don't wanna be doing.
So the three lower projectors on the Morimoto light, those are going to be your regular
headlights.
The upper projector, that's only going to come on when your high beams are on.
That's not going to have any sort of cutoff, it's just gonna be a wide open, bright light
and it's gonna provide a ton of usable light when there isn't oncoming traffic, you know
those situations on those dark back roads.
And then you have your running lights, they're gonna come in, on those four quadrants, they're
gonna be a white light just like your headlights are and you're not gonna have anything like
that over here in your factory headlight.
Not gonna have a daytime running light.
So we wired our daytime running lights right into the parking light and we have that white
light just as an extra marker, a little bit of extra visibility.
Again, changing the look of your Jeep, but also making you more visible, you sort of
have that function and form aspect mixed in.
Then you have those quadrants change to a yellow flashing amber light.
When your turn signals are on, the white light goes off, you have the amber coming on.
Again, over here on the factory light, you don't have any of that.
It's just a fairly dim reflector halogen light.
So pretty drastic differences in both form and function from these two headlights.
The Morimoto headlight is going to provide a lot of additional features and also just
be a way better headlight than that factory one is.
Once we have both headlights bolted in and wired up, we can get our grille reinstalled.
Now we just have to drop the hood and we're done.
So if you are looking for a high quality and unique set of projector headlights for your
JK, I would recommend this option from Morimoto and you can find them right here at extremeterrain.com.