First thing I did of course was to open them both up to make sure they had all the required internal lighting parts. And behold, they even came with the lighbulbs!
So it was easy enough to take out the bulbs, but now I had a problem. I couldn't figure out how to remove the plastic unit, as there were no screws! And I wasn't about to start pushing and pulling and risk damaging the Alcantara...
So I shifted my attention to the center light unit, which I know has screws that attach it to the ceiling. After removing the clear plastic lens you can see the PIAA COB I installed.
And yes, a few turns of the screwdriver later and the unit just dropped out. I DID have to undo the wiring harness clip though.
Speaking of the harness clip, that turned out to be a momentary challenge. Take a look below at the green arrows, my old unit on the left has the white female clip facing to the right, while the black S15 unit has no such separate female clip, with the terminals being built into a molded in clip and facing left.
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Note also the purple clip - the R33 OEM unit has a very tangible and mechanical switch. The S15 one is "built in" |
The technological advancement continues on the underside as well - see how the R33 unit has actual wires connecting the bulb leads with the switch, while the S15 unit seems to be built with a one piece metal circuit.
In any case, I hooked up the S15 unit to the male connector on the car side, and was able to confirm it worked!
Very hot bulb, but I managed to get it out and replace with the PIAA COB LED unit.
Oops, forgot to turn it off. Here it is now.
Meanwhile, now having a pair of clear lamp covers, I decided to see which one was in better condition, as they are interchangeable - and why not use the cleaner one?
At first glance, the one on the right (which came with the S15 unit) DOES appear cleaner. But, I got out the Novus plastic polish just in case.
I also decided to extend this prep to the clear lens for the front spotlights - the S15 unit is on the bottom.
After polishing all 4, this is what I ended up with. And yes, the S15 ones were in better shape.
Now, I finally had a chance to figure out how to remove the front spotlight unit assembly. Looking closely at the S15 one, I noticed one side had a metal clip, while the other was solid plastic.
That was my AHA moment. So I decided to use some Novus to clean this piece up:
And then after some scrubbing and a wipe down:
I was able to pull the R33 unit towards the right, where the metal clip is, and then pop out the left side. It happened very quickly!
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Note the 3M sound and heat deadening installed when Nismo Omori installed the Alcantara roof liner! |
These two units ALSO had some mechanical differences. Again the terminal clip is built in on the S15 one (yellow arrow) while the R33 one had the separate external clip (light blue arrow).
And on the bottom side, differences as well in how the bulbs are held in place.
Here is a close up of the S15 one - you can see how the bulb goes in and then is twisted/locked into place, due to the indent (light blue arrow).
It was a small struggle to reinstall the two PIAA COB LEDs that I had mounted to a strip of spare aluminum, back when I first installed them. (I had to bend the aluminum a bit to make them fit better - or rather, exactly square this time!).
Installation was the same as the center lamp, as the harness was long enough to reach around and snap into place nicely
And once installed, I went ahead and snapped in the cleaner clear lenses for both.
So what do you think? Slowly but surely, fixing the small details is really adding to the overall impression and quality of my "modernized" R33 GT-R!