Hey all,

I was thinking about picking up a first gen OV-25 that's for sale in my local area. Its for sale for 40 dollars, unfortunately it's missing the ballast and wiring but it does have the glass and all the rest of the pieces. I figure it'll be a good spring project whenever I go on break.

My question is this: How easy would it be for me to put a 400w MV ballast inside of it? Do they have standard boltholes or will I need to make something to accept a standard ballast with it?

Thanks in advance,

-Mad Max

It shouldn't be too hard, worst case is you might have fabricate a new bracket for the new ballast using the old ballast mounting points. I usually take some aluminum bar/angle, cut to length, mark the required holes out and punch and drill as required. That way I can usually avoid drilling into any original metal.

Then for the electrical you should be able to connect cleanly to the original socket and terminal block with crimp spade or similar connectors. I usually do that to avoid most of the wirenuts.

I had a aftermarket ballast in my Crimefighter for a few years before I finally got around to restoring the OEM ballast, I basically used the aftermarket ballast bracket to mount the aftermarket ballast into the OEM ballast mounting holes. That way I was able to undo everything when I put the OEM ballast in and so it looks totally stock now.

Yeah it shouldn’t be difficult at all.

 Definitely worth it for the price Max .

Alright, ill go see if i can pick it up at some point.

 I would ! 

Haven't contacted the owner yet but ill probably go scoop it up next weekend and then order a 400w Probe start MH ballast for it

Sounds like a plan !!

Max, it's been a month...how did this work out?

Havent had the time as of recently to go get it, however i did get an AEL 113 out of the blue yesterday.  Will see if i can still go get this.