juan01

Yup, I did it!! I bought my headlights blacked out already... I got into an accident and the driver's side was ruined. I ordered a used headlight on Ebay and was driving around with one black and one chrome for about 2 weeks... I finally got around to blacking it out today. It was really tedious!!! but it's a very doable project. I recommend it for those who have yellowing lens, because you can't even tell your lens are yellow anymore if you do this! Anyway, I followed the instructions on opening it up (use the search function for more info). Heat it in the oven at 200 degrees for 3-4 mins... Take it out, start prying away at the glue... it took me 4 heating sessions to finally get it.. I started at the bottom and picked away little by little at the corner.. When it finally came apart, I just pulled it slowly all the way down...... Then I got some high-temp flat black paint from Kmart and did 3 coats on the chrome inserts.... For the corner lens I covered the amber bulb housing and the reflector part at the bottom for the signal with newspaper and sprayed. Cleaned the inside of the lens with Meguiar's plastic cleaner, put the screws on....reheat the headlight and push it back together. Then I used some silicone.. .black so it could match and spread it evenly along the junction... let it dry for a few hours.. Now it's night and here is the pic! Sorry my hood is looking crap..... It will be fixed as soon as it heads to the bodyshop!! Thanks for reading!! LOL

binelus

He he ! You did what I did on my EX ( ) ES....

meZoom!

interesting write up and nice details. more pics later?

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

juan01

I got some moisture in the headlight.....

Doesn't look so bad, I was driving in POURING rain last night (we got a typhoon 200 miles away from us) and not much water got in... Guess more silicone is going on..... even though I already put a TON on.

BigRich

Does it effect how bright the lights are?

mcelligott

Put the headlight in a room with a dehumidifier for a few hours first, otherwise youre just trapping the condensation in.

juan01

I think it does somewhat affect how bright the lights are. Just a tad bit though. I was using one black and one regular for awhile and there wasn't that much of a difference when looking from inside the car. But looking at the lights from outside, you could tell.

I haven't had any trouble with water getting in since then.... Maybe once or twice, but it's hot enough on Guam for it to be dried up within a day. Plus, I don't have a dehumidifier.

Fireblaze

Nice job on the headlights, I think there is another way if you don't want to spray paint them. There are some companies that make high performance tinted sheets. Don't know too much info about that tho.

Pogo

In lieu of a hot sunny dry day:

Set the damp item in front of an air-conditioning vent (in a building, not your car )

Set it very close to a large vent blowing a lot of air at fairly high pressure ( = fast dry wind).

This works for exposed surfaces, cloth, paper, not-too-thick wood, etc. It should work on an open headlight cover, but not a closed one, of course. If room air is very humid, though, condensation willl form on the cooling surface, so don't bother.



As an aside: Air conditioners were an off-shoot of the invention of the dehumidifier. All a dehumidifier does is cool the damp air down quickly trigering heavy condenstion, drying the air. Hence the puddle under your car after driving on a hot humid day.

Dehimidifiers were devveloped because printing presses are sensitive to humidity -- humidity affects paper 'stretch' and ink absorbtion and the effective speed of the press. I think a newspaper company developed the first one.