install Bat's overlays
 

I had installed Bat's overlays more than a year ago and loved the look (6/10 on head/tail lights), but I had a few imperfections that I wanted to fix...I had used a heat gun instead of a hair dryer (at the time, I was un-married and didn't have access to one); needless to say, the heat gun was way too hot and I had a few wrinkles that up close, didn't look the best.

here's my process:

1) I removed the old overlays...intially I was scared that this would be a PITA, but it's actually very easy; I heated the overlays up with my wife's hair dryer and just pealed them off.

this is before using the hair dryer...it was much harder to get the overlay off w/out the extra heat...btw, the car was filthy when I was taking them off...it had been snowing a lot and the car sat in the garage for almost 2 months:icon14:
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...s/DSC02380.jpg


http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...s/DSC02381.jpg

2) I unrolled the new overlays and put a few items on top of them to get them flat.
3) I then washed the head lights really really well.
4) I then peeled off the back and dipped the overlays into a water/soap mixture
5) sprayed the headlight w/ the water/soap mixture
6) Aligned the overlay and began useing a credit card w/ soft towel over it to move the bubbles/water out.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...s/DSC02471.jpg


http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...s/DSC02468.jpg
(I have a lot more pics, but it's really hard to tell the difference w/ the lighting)

7) after that, I began using the hair dryer to soften the curved portions...and slowly-slowly wiped those areas to get the overlays to lay down. As I did this, I tried to evenly disperse the waviness...that way, the heat could help to lie all of it down properly; if you leave big waves, it's harder for the material to shrink enough to be flat.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...s/DSC02467.jpg

you can see that the waviness is smaller and it's starting to lay down...this is the part that takes patience.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...s/DSC02466.jpg
8) on the edges, I used a bit more heat to get the excess mateiral to curl around the edges.

here's the finished product:

w/out flash:
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...s/DSC02515.jpg


here's a few old shots of the car w/ th overlays...from a distance, you can't tell a difference; but up close, you can.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...s/100_1529.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...and058xtm7.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...s/100_1533.jpg


*In all, this took me around 2 hrs total...I'm really bad at exterior type of things, so there's probably ppl in this section that could do it much faster and better then me:confused:

I'm also doing my front/rear side markers...I'[ll post a separate thread on those.

-Peter

looks good

i liked the smoked look, but the only reason I don't want to do it is that I'm losing light output :( but this is like a cheap alternative to getting your headlights painted.

I agree that it's cheaper than painting your headlights, but it's also not permanent (A new headlight housing would be $$). As for light output, I've found that my high beams w/ overlays is about the same as low beams w/out...so I just drive around w/ high beams on. i really don't miss the difference in light output at all.

looks good!

my high beams point way high, so I don't want to do that....maybe when i need to change out the HID bulb ill shoot for some 4K bulbs and then put the overlay over and that should even it a little.

Is that the stock rear wing?

I though you were going to paint the headlights instead the second time around? Let me know if you still want to, hopefully these ones turned out better

Thats more like no rear wing if you look closely :)

very sick. love the car

I can confirm he has no wing, I've seen it in person

Damn that does look good........now i have lots of ideas....

+1 , no wing.

Looks great!!!

Looks good Peter! Cant wait to see some daytime pics ;).

Bat™