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