318ti Halogen to 325xi Xenon Conversion?

[LouieMondo]

I. Have. A. Plan.

I have a 1996 318ti with stock Halogen headlights. When I hit a deer a few years back with my 2003 325xi, the Xenon headlights were replaced, but I kept the old ones since only the housing was cracked, but the internals were fine. I am wondering if it is at all possible to take the guts out of the 325xi headlights and somehow retrofit them into the 318ti housings?

Has anyone ever attempted this? Is it even possible, or am I chasing the white rabbit here?

Any advice would be awesome.

[martynjames]

as long as the xenon gas hasn't escaped the the light should go, as to making custom mountings on the back of the e36 lamp thats up to you bro

[MINIz guy]

You can't bake open the US E36 headlights, so you will have to cut the plastic lens off. That is easy, and you can reseal it using some RTV silicone.

You can easily take the xenon projector out of the E46 headlight, as the lens just pops off and you can then unscrew the projector off its mounts.

With both headlights apart, you're going to need to take good measurements. Most likely, you will have to cut into the low beam bowl of your E36 headlights to be able to seat the E46 projectors correctly, and not have them protrude out of the headlight housing too much so you can get the lens back on. You will also need to make sure the projector is aimed perfectly horizontal when you seat it in the E36 bowl. Once you are completely satisfied with the aim, you can JB Weld or epoxy the projector into the E36 bowl to secure it in place.

Once this is done, you can deal with ballasts, capacitors and error cancelers to get rid of any warning messages the car sees when a ballast is used instead of a halogen bulb.

Honestly, it seems like a lot of work but isn't. If you have a good attention to detail and have some tools, like a Dremel and drill, you're set to retrofit your own headlights.

I plan on doing tackling a project like this once I have my car sorted mechanically.

[LouieMondo]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I am psyched to give it a go. I will post pics once it is finished.