Changing a HID bulb in a 2004 Prius.

 How to Change a HID headlight bulb on a 2004 Prius.

Step 1: Buy the bulb - it costs 80-90 bucks from your local NAPA Auto Parts store. If you are in a smaller town you will probably have to stay in that town another night while waiting for the bulb to arrive.

Step 2: Open the hood. Take the plastic cover off - it requires a Phillips screwdriver and a slotted one for leverage to pop the little plastic screws up and out. If you are replacing the left bulb you will also have to remove a second piece of plastic with the same tools. I used a Gerber multi-tool and the last of my wits for the job.

 

Step 3: Once you have the plastic out of your way - you will need to turn the fins of the headlight assembly casing counter-clockwise or in my case struggle with it never being opened before for 20 minutes before deciding to use penetrating oil on the seals and waiting then coming back and struggling more before it finally budged.

 Step 4: Once that is turned you then need to wiggle it and work the plastic case out of your way. This may take upwards of 10 minutes if you're lucky. Then there is a secondary coil in place which you will need to turn it counter-clockwise as well and then remove it. This actually isn't much of a pain unlike the rest of the process.

Step 5: Now the assembly case and the coil is out you need to reach up on top of the actual bulb and feel around for two little metal clips that need to be pushed in and then one to the left and one to the right so the clip can fall out of the way of the bulb and allow you to remove it.

Step 6: The bulb should then slide out pretty easily. Once it is out now you have the fun task of doing the exact same thing, but in reverse. It's actually pretty easy going in reverse, just make sure the metal clip is in the exact right place otherwise it all falls to hell pretty quick.

This little piece of glass, wire filament, and plastic is forged in the depths of Hell and will consume you.

Oct. 15th - Biking, Waterfalls, and *#@$ing Prius Lights.

Today began wonderfully on the shore of Lake Superior. The sun was finally pushing its way through the clouds after being absent for the last couple of days. The rain gave way over night and was replaced by a chilly 40 degrees and a biting wind. So I suited up and went on a bike ride from Cutface Creek to Grand Marais and up a bit on the Gunflint Trail fighting the wind and the ascent. But in the end it was all worth it - my cold-weather gear worked splendidly, my legs still felt good, I got to see a waterfall, and was able to ride some dirt/gravel as well.

And then I had to change the headlight bulb in the Prius. Which no matter how many times you watch the Youtube video's it can't prepare you for the hell it really is. So after an hour or so of digging around in the hood of the car finagling a light around while the wind whipped around me I finally got the gall damned thing in there. (There will be a forthcoming post later when I feel the need to reminisce)

After that, the day once again became nice as Jena and I were able to walk around town and check out a couple of the local businesses. We saw a nice, tiny bike shop, a cool little book store, a stuffy outdoors store and an awesome outdoors store before returning to our house to make lunch. After lunch we headed up to the Municipal Pool to get in some whirlpool, sauna, pool, and shower time before heading towards the border.

Oct. 14th - Stuck in Grand Marais.

Don't worry just til tomorrow. We ended up having one of the HID headlights go out on the Prius when we were in Duluth and instead of driving through a foreign country with busted light we decided to get one from the NAPA store up here. But it turned out they don't have it in stock so they put in an order for it and it should be here tomorrow morning. We heard that there was some way to replace the Prius lights without having to do Toyota's recommended bumper removal and after some searching I found a couple good videos on YouTube (jnet1 and lusciousgarage) which explain and show how to remove/replace the lights without too much of a hassle. So that is the plan for tomorrow morning before heading towards Thunder Bay.

Otherwise this morning has been alright - stresses here and there - trying to prepare everything before the border. But we were able to get our camping gear dried out from the other night at a beautiful rest area along Cutface Creek(about 1 mile south of Grand Marais), bought groceries finally so we could stop eating at restaurants, and now we are resting at a comfortable little coffee shop called the Java Moose waiting for the cold, dreary mist to leave the city before exploring.

The headphones don't fit over my beard. Jena thought it was funny.

This is one of the best designs for a reusable coffee mug - silicone lid, ceramic mug, genius.