*Warning: lots of pics you will need fast Internet*

IMO the shape/design of the MK2 MR2 is a timeless classic. When first rolling out on to the roads in 1989 many other cars in it's price bracket looked like a triangular shoebox. One area that gives away the age of the car is the square block headlights. I wanted to modernise my two a bit and felt that the Rogue Rev 6 headlamp kit would do just that, whilst still retaining the rare and cool pop up feature.

An SW20 featuring Rev6 lights installed

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Comparison of standard to low rise

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Manufacturers product page: http://www.roguesystems.co.uk/forms/Product.aspx?ID=298


I ordered the kit a couple of months ago and had been waiting for a clear few days to have a good run at the install. One thing to note is that the box is quite large and will not fit in the boot of a Mk2. If you buy it and get it shipped to work (like I did), the only way to bring it home is in the passenger seat or repack it in to another box (like I did)

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Rogue supply black and white manuals with the kit which have photos and details, although some of them are a little hard to see clearly - one of the reasons for this write up.

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The parts from the kit spread out

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Some close ups of the Hella lamps that come with the kit. I don't know a huge amount about lamps but these are impressive looking. Especially taking in to account my old faded factory lights.


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There are three steps involved in the kit installation:
1. Assembly
2. Installation
3. Adjustment & tweaking

Step 1
The kit contains several custom pieces and these are varying in quality, I do however like these adjustable retract rods, which formulate the first part of the kit assembly.

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The rods have a recommended length to be set to, and Rogue have provisioned for this by putting two holes in the side of the light carriers that is used as a template. It's just a matter of making sure that the assembly fits correctly on here and then it's close enough to begin the assembly process.

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Before tightening up the lock nuts, I like to put just a drop of threadlocker in place. It helps to ensure that vibrations won't loosen off the nuts and gives some piece of mind.

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Once the sizing is done, it's a matter of removing two of the swivel bolts and installing them in to the light carriers.

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Also with a drop of thread locker to make sure it won't fall off on to the street some rainy night ;)

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The manual now suggests to lay out the main parts like so:

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The hella lamps are fitted to the front uprights via these adjustment rods:

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You have to pay attention to the instructions here as when these adjustment rods are installed, they are practically impossible to remove - you don't want to get them in the wrong spot!

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The rods are a massive pain in the neck to install! It looks like a simple push in and turn system, but they are tighter than a fishes proverbial. I used a combination of needle nose pliers, thick set pliers, and vice grips to get them all in place.

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Once the rod is locked down it should look like this from the underside

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And this from the front

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It's a very arduous and process to get all twelve installed and your fingers pay for it, but at the end then it's time to fit these plastic clips that adjoin the adjustment rod to the light frame.

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The lights and adjusters sit nicely in to the mounting frame

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View from the back

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Getting the clips installed in to the frames is bloody hard! so I put the vice grips to good use...

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Once these are clicked in to place, it's a case of adjusting the main rods to the sizes specified in the manual which are *hopefully* close to aligned

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Starting to look like a set of headlights

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The lights and frame next to the holder

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Assembly test fitting

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Looks nice

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The next step is to prepare the wires and connectors. These fit very nicely and make the kit feel very professional

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The lights have three bulbs in total and I was wondering why this harness looked like it only had a couple of dodgy connections

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But then I read the manual further and found that there was a connector set in the kit to take care of that..

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Quality result

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And now it's time to screw the frame in to the carrier (with a drop of thread lock of course)

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Finally there's a simple assembly of the wires in to the connector block, and then installation of a plastic bushing

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And now we're ready to take on step 2!!

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Step 2

Installation

Further to Marty's suggestion, I decided that I would put a few coats of Hammerite paint on the housings to try and ward away he who shall not be named (starts with R). This would have been a lot easier at the start before the lights were in and I will be damned if I were going to try and rebuild those housings. So I decided to tape instead:

A little dusty from sitting on the shelf a few months

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One taped

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All taped

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I painted those with a thick coat of Hammerite satin black and left them to dry for a couple of days. There were some paint runs but doesn't really matter as the plastic shroud and body coloured top panel cover all of that.

The next step was taking out the factory lights and install the Rev6's. To make life easy for myself I only started on one light and left the other side so I had something to compare against or if worst came to worst I would not be stranded with no lights while I fixed something that went wrong!

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Conveniently I am still getting around to fixing a broken under tray on the passenger side, and as Rogue suggest in the instructions that it's necessary to remove the tray for the install this became the first side out of the gates.

ONE THING TO NOTE HERE: take your time, dissasembly and installation from this point forward is all very close to the paintwork of your car. It's better to ease things along slowly and carefully than land up with a lot of paint scratches/repairs later on. Read the Rogue instructions through a few times and familiarise yourself with them. Another tip is that it's a good idea to prepare for this by provisioning the following:

* A well charged Dremel with cutting discs and small grinding stones
* WD40 for rusty nuts/bolts/screws
* Copper ease for reinserting said rusty nuts/bolts/screws
* A willing assistant as sometimes you have to hold the light assembly up while working underneath it and it can be fiddly. (special thanks to Punxster!)
* Time: this install takes hours, don't try and pull it off if you're strapped for time.

Step one is remove the four screws holding the shroud to the light housing and easy it away.

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Then loosening the four screws holding on the top cover, gently slip it up and off the housing. Depending on how long it's been sitting there you might have your work cut out for you as it can be quite tight

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You're then left with this ET/WallE looking piece that is way too ugly to be on an MR2

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There's a thick rod that pushes the headlight up and down, disconnect this from the motor end (poor pic I know). The method I used was to put a big flat head screwdriver between the knuckle and the arm and twist. It pops off handy enough without needing pliers.

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Then using a 10mm socket, it's time to undo the two bolts that are holding the headlight pivot in place. There's a metal collar that sits on the light side, I found that I had to hold this with a vice grips to be able to undo the bolt, it was pretty rusted/seized.

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The light is then twisted/turned out of position and up and out of the socket. There's a four plug connector in there that needs to be disconnected also which is the power for the lights.

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As you can see from this pic, the underside of the housing takes a bit of a weathering from water/salt spray... :(

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I was glad to see that my chassis rail and inside the compartment was not in this state, but gave it a wipe over anyway to clean things a bit.

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Then it is time to disconnect the motor - note that this should be done with the lights in the down position.

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And the light assembly/motor brackets needs to be removed for modification, this is achieved by undoing the two 10mm bolts at the top back, one on the left side and this one which is the hardest to locate which is hidden away behind the motor (see the socket/ratchet is ready to undo it)

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The bracket then lifts straight out

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This arm needs to be shortened and the white bump stop is removed

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Dremel time

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Rogue have instructions to cut it to "the fold". My JDM arm did not have any fold? so I just cut it at an estimate on what was shown in the instructions

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This is what I landed up with - note I had to cut this again in a later step though..

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Then it is time to remove the lifter arm from the motor, this is a 14mm nut and quite tough on there. Thankfully the motor must be tight as hell as I was able to undo it withough moving the arm.

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To actually get the arm off the motor was another story though and took a soaking of wd40 and some prising with the big screw driver.

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Then the new Rogue arm is prepared with a ball joint, I used some locktite here to make sure it would resist the temptation to undo on the road

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Rogue give a configuration sheet to help make sure you get the arm on the right way

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As you can see the motor cam is tapered and when you bolt on the rogue arm the thread cuts in to the bracket, so this has to be done up very tight - you don't want it to slip. One thing I should have done here is cut with a standard washer instead of a spring washer as it pretty much ruined the spring washer which I had to then replace.

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This bump stop needs to be wound out and the nut removed. In Rogues Instructions they say to install it with the thread half way down. On my car I landed up having to screw it the whole way in and then put the nut on the back as a safety precaution

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The bracket can then be reinstalled as it's time to get the housing in there.

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Then it was out with the painted housing for the next step:

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Looking good!

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At this stage I chose to put some copper grease on these bolts as they're looking a bit crusty and if I ever need to take them out again I would like them to willingly participate.

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Rogue supply lifter arms that have a sprung locking balljoint style connection, I applied some LM grease to keep things slick and then secured the motor end

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If you leave it sitting in this position, it makes life easier later on

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Now the pivot bushing is also due some grease

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There's a new threaded collar to install in the kit and the Toyota bolt goes right in (test fitting in this pic).

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I found that the width of the housing was very tight at this point and that I had to use vice grips to push the collar tightly in to the housing, then with the bolts out it slips in to place ok

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At this point my camera ran out of battery, so I put it on charge, when doing the other side I will get more pics of this next part

So the next part involves a lot of swearing, cutting, fitting and measuring. When you bolt the body coloured lid to the top of the housing (in my case) it was nowhere near looking like fitting properly.

Doesn't look too bad here:

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But with the bonnet down, it's clear that the cover fitment is not right, worst of all that was after two hours of slotting the fitting holdes with a dremel!
[img]http://mr2.ie/mr2/rev6lights/IMG_2543.JPG[img]

Because I was worried that the whole weekend would go before I could get the lid exactly right, I decided to skip ahead to the next step and make sure I at least had the lights installed. This was a useful move as what I found out next is that there is an upper bumpstop to fit. I had seen this threaded rod in the kit and despite having read the instructions I could not really imagine where it would go.

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Remember back at the start we cut off a white bump stop? well this rod replaces it and the way it works is by screwing it in horizontally in to the housing.

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It has a slotted end (on one side) to make life easier, still I had to give the light assembly a bit of a jiggle to make it go through at first.

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According to the Rogue instructions, you can use the manual light lifter/lowerer to make this easier

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I tried that but landed up having to trim the bumpstop bracket a bit to make it work - thankyou Dremel!

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Then with some more aggressive cutting of the body coloured top panel, I was able to get a factory fit finish

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Hello!

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Old school:

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New school:

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I took this photo to show the height difference from inside the car

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Once you've done one light, the second light is a lot easier with all of the tricks learned. The only real difference on the drivers side light was the fact that the bonnet rod is a bit pesky and in the way when aligning, fitting the all thread etc. Otherwise it was a very similar excercise:

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Next steps.... Alignment and finishing trim
In progress..

Step 3

Work in progress

Results

Before Rev 6 (standard lights)
Picture with no lights

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Just parking lights

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Main lights

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High Beam

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After Rev 6
Work in progress

If you still have the chance I would recommend going over the metal cases with a few more coats of paint. I have had mine installed for only 30 months and they are rusting

KC+ for you Quandry, you always go to bother of doing the write-ups.

great write up so far Quandry!!! i'm a bit jealous that you have them lights. KC for you!!!

Great "How Two" Geoff KC coming for you.

Marty J wrote:
If you still have the chance I would recommend going over the metal cases with a few more coats of paint. I have had mine installed for only 30 months and they are rusting

Where abouts did the rust turn up Marty - any chance of a pic?

I will try and take some photos tomorrow for you.

Great write-up - can't wait to see them finished at the next mini-meet

Cheers Marty, might see if I can get a bit more paint on to the casing as you suggest. How long have you been running yours for?

Quick question, as most of the corrision is on the left hand side of the unit is it due to the heat build up from the light unit i.e. is that the main driving lights.

Is so maybe something to reflect the heat as well may cure this problem, its not the first time I have seen picture like that with these units. See Marty's pics makes me think its heat build up which is getting the rust ball moving.

I could be completly wrong but maybe it is the issue.

I would put it down to poor quality, not heat. My revision 6 healights have never been used on the main road.

Step 2 updated!

Very nice writeup i want low rise lights too!
Anyone know what sort of lights these are in the pic? and where i could get them?

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Nice write up as usual Qunadry KC+1

Spla, that looks like a custom one off job. Those lights are not known on here so I guess that guy just got some nice little fog light style lights and made them work.

Quandry, awesome write up man. I personally love these Rev6's, they really are one mod that 100% compliments the MR2. It takes nothing away, just brings it bang up to date.

Great job and a KC. Best of luck with the second one and the tweaking.

SWAGGER wrote:
Spla, that looks like a custom one off job. Those lights are not known on here so I guess that guy just got some nice little fog light style lights and made them work.

Quandry, awesome write up man. I personally love these Rev6's, they really are one mod that 100% compliments the MR2. It takes nothing away, just brings it bang up to date.

Great job and a KC. Best of luck with the second one and the tweaking.

Cheers mate and kc back at ya!

They look great in the skin Quandry, you have KC.

Wow !!!

Can't wait to see these at the next C&C - i reckon there could be a few people following suit once they see these

Great work and great write-up

WOW great right yup - sounds like a nightmare to get them installed!
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Great write up great to see something done with a bit of presicion and pride not just thrown at the car