draco

Did you lose much in the way of lighting for either driving or high beams? I want to make sure that when I do paint my lights it's not going to compromise the beam pattern etc. particularly for the high beam light.

chuckbass

Hey Draco:
When I did mine, I didnt black out the chrome/silver reflective "bowl" for the DRL/high beam bulb and haven't noticed any reduction in light output.

My headlights are HID with AFS and the black paint didn't have any negative affect on the light pattern/output of the the projector.

Hope this helps! It's a total pain in the a$$, but worth it in the end. Just start off conservatively with the oven temperature until you are able to soften the glue.

Some people have used a heat gun to soften the glue, but I'm reluctant to do so, as heat guns can burn/melt stuff quickly if you leave it in place for just a few seconds too long. I prefer the even heat of the oven method.

draco

You mean you painted it like this?

I was going to seperate the light out into it's components and paint the "chrome" part only. Can you post up a picture of yours to make sure we are talking about the same thing.

chuckbass

Yep, just like that. Here's mine:

draco

Yep thanks. It would be illegal to paint that refelctor dish anyway, so will definately not be touching that with paint or my fingers. I will probably end up doing it with the heat gun as I am mortified about the fact that my oven would (1) melt it and (2) my wife finding out what I just did to our new oven

chuckbass

Check out this video: they use a heat gun and a box to create an "oven" of sorts. Pretty neat!

draco

That's clever with the box. First time I have seen that. Anyway, how much wiring is there to pull from the back before heating it? Just wondering what needs to be removed etc. given that their is AFS in there.

chuckbass

I removed all bulbs, ballast and as many harnesses as possible.

I didn't remove the AFS components and they survived.

Based on what other DIYs have said, as long as the wires aren't making contact with hot metal (inside oven) they should be ok.

chuckbass

Hey Draco: in case you haven't started, when you are able to remove the clear cover for the headlight, there will be grey glue stuck along the perimeter of it.

There are 2 screws that hold in the main chrome part that you are going to paint black.

Before you paint the chrome part, use a hair dryer and some disposable object (chop sticks, etc) to remove as much glue as possible from the perimeter of the clear cover.

After painting, It will be tricky to get the newly painted part back onto the clear cover without making contact with the glue. To prevent any ugly grey glue from getting on the newly blacked out piece, use masking tape to cover the glue along the perimeter of the clear cover.

I didn't know this when I did it, and the ugly grey glue stuck on to my painted blacked out piece and it was super obvious when I put it back together. Argh!

Carver

Good to see you moving forward on some of these things.