Arrtus

Well, this "project" was a real pain in the *** but I think it was completely worth the trouble.

Took me three days to complete the whole thing. The sanding part killed my hand and gave me carpel tunnel and arthritis and every other sickness you can get in your hand.

Let me know what you guys think!

woody03

iTrader: (5)

To be honest I'm a bit surprised, but i like it. The black housing definitely helps.

HRMoneyPit

Looks good

Would have been better if the color matched

mechanicaljesus

that looks great! do you have a write up on what you did? i would like to copy your idea and do it to my car now, if you don't mind.

mr. sparco

iTrader: (13)

Not so sure I'm feeling the yellow, looks nice tho.

terrasmak

iTrader: (8)

Never seen that color combo, typically I'm not a fan of painted light setups, but dam that looks good.

turboed350z

Shouldve color matched or go all black.

Not feeling the chrome reflector on the turn single either

travlee

iTrader: (8)

i think if he swapped out for stealth bulbs it would look better

ninevoltz

Looks awesome!

Arrtus

I can do a quick write up here.

What you first want to do is obviously take off the headlights. I'll assume you know how to do this. Refer to this post on how to open your headlights: http://www.**********.com/forums/141...eadlights.html

okay, take note on the transparent parts of this piece. You'll need to paint around them and also not get any paint on the backside of them.





I figured taping them wouldn't work well enough since you're need to be really accurate and it's hard to manipulate tape into such a small space. What I did was: I plasti-dipped those spots and hoped that I could peel it off later after I painted over it... It wasn't the best idea because I ended up having to sand it off anyway. So I guess just do what you think will work best. Personally, I found it easier to sand it with the plasti-dip on it.












Next you need to sand off all the original paint. I used 180 grit sandpaper and 2500 grit to smoothen it afterwards.




Before you paint it, make sure you've smoothen it with with the higher grit sandpaper. Also, wear some gloves and clean it with some rubbing alcohol to get all the dust off. The paint I used was purchased from PaintSratch so it would match my car's color. It's a tricoat color which means there were multiple layers of paint that I had to spray on.

First, I did two full basecoats then another light basecoat from a further distance to blend it together. I waited about 10-15 minutes between each coat. Next, I sprayed on the midcoat (two layers) also waited about 10 minutes for each one of these. Lastly, I did two clearcoats (waited 20 minutes between each of these).




Note how the back part of it is also tapped to keep the paint off of the transparent areas. Also, I painted behind the piece itself to keep any light from entering and exposing any imperfections on it (primarily from small spots that weren't able to be sanded off perfectly).

lastly, you're going to need to sand off all the paint from the inside of the grooves. I tapped the edges on each other them and thoroughly sanded them one by one. 180 grit then followed it with 2500 grit.

Now put everything back together and reinstall it on your car. Of course you're going to have to oven your headlights again in order to properly reseal them back up so follow the link I posted in reverse order and you'll be fine. Good luck!

Arrtus

Now i'm going to have to take them back apart and paint the chrome reflectors black. See what you did?

travlee

iTrader: (8)

but if you paint the reflector, the blinker wont be as bright....just my thoughts

SQuaLZ

Looks awesome. I wouldn't paint the chrome reflector, just change out the bulb to a stealth bulb.

Are your HIDs yellow or OEM color?

Arrtus

they're OEM. And what's a stealth bulb? Is that just a clear bulb instead of an orange one?

travlee

iTrader: (8)

they have a silver tint so they dont stand out in the housing

http://www.stealthbulbs.com/products.html

i had them in my turn signals front and rear

SQuaLZ

Are you allowed to have Yellow HIDs in your state? Just thinking that would look pretty cool.

Arrtus

I'm not sure but I've never really been a fan of colored headlights. However, I do really like the demon eyes/iron man mod with the different colors, just not the actual light that is projected.

Golden_Armz

iTrader: (3)

Damn that actually came out pretty nice. I painted my reflectors. Don't care if they're not bright, lol

dboyzalter

iTrader: (3)

Those came out great, I painted my headlights... Well I clear coated them after I sanded off all the yellow. I thought thats what this thread was going to be.


And yeah I know im tardy to the party.

Arrtus

haha, what? What do you mean you clear coated them after you sanded them? Were yours originally yellow or something? Post some pics of them, let us all see your masterpiece.