So, bored yet again with a couple bucks in my pocket I decided to take this on since I saw them on Kelus car and he mentioned they werent easy to take apart, so curious me (whether thats good or bad
) went ahead and tried. While they were difficult to come apart, it was mainly time that made it difficult. Im not exactly great at writeups since I do alot of my modding on the fly, but here is a shot at those who may want to try this, but are a little queezy about it. I figure Id give it a shot since I dont believe I will be keeping them on the car once I finish up my other project.
So, here goes.
Tools I used:
1. Philips head screw driver
2. Heat Gun
3. Flat blade screw driver (short stubby handle with a wide blade preferred)
4. Cotter pin extractor (a large 90 degree pick will work just as well)
5. BBQ Grill paint for it high temp quality and flat black
6. Clear indoor/outdoor silicone caulk/adhesive
7. Small roll or blue painters tape
8. 7mm long and short sockets and accompanying ratchet wrench
9. Brand new razor blade
10. Duct tape
11. Light grit sandpaper
(I dont have pictures of this process) First remove the light from the car. This entails of (4) 7mm screws. There are two along the top and two underneath. This is where the short socket comes in because they are a pain in the ass and awkward to get too without removing anything. Once the light is removed, turn it around and take out the turn signal bulb and the clips holding the wire harness on up to the foglight. Dont take the foglight bulb out. Remove the three small silver screws holding the projector housing to the turn/fog housing. Set that aside and go to the bathroom because this is the time consuming part.
Take your heat gun and wave it about 1 1/2" to 2" away from where the seal is on the light making sure not to stay in one spot for very long. This ensures no critical melting of plastics. After about a minute on one side, test the waters with your stubby screw driver. You may cause little markings in the plastics, but thats allright since they wont be seen. If still too tight, dont force it and spend about another minute or so heating up that side. Now, one important part to this as well. While youre heating each side, switch over to the foglight opening periodically. As youre slowly prying off the perimeter, the adhesive being soft in that area will make it go much smoother. Now once you go around the perimter of the housing, if you did it correct, you should see the adhesive on the foglight opening stretched out. Take your cotter pin extractor or pick tool and gently pick at it and try to get a tear in the adhesive if there isnt one already. If there is, take your heat gun and heat up the area while gently pulling on the clear plastic. It should pop right off. Should take about 15 - 20 minutes per light. After that, you should have this:
Now, this is the next fun part, getting the glue out of there. Take your heat gun and pretty much do the same thing you did in the first step but after each section, take your pick tool and start to take the remaining black adhesive off the light. The perimeter of the housing is pretty easy, its getting that crap out of the foglight opening thats the
. Just have patience and youll get it all out. Now those that just want to paint the light can skip to the next step, thos who want some reflectivity can keep reading. Take the blue painters tape and tape off the back of the light. You only need to do the curved back surface so light output wont be diminished. Now its hard to see since I taped it up, but in the next picture you will kind of see what I mean by this. The ridges that form the reflective surface kind of swoop out on the one side, I only noticed this after painting so I had to repeat the process for both light. But you can stop at about the third one in from the side and I think it will look a little better. Also hard to see, I didnt tape the ridges on the opposite wall I guess you can call it. Only the smooth curved part. Make sure the tape is pressed tight against the surface or paint will bleed under and ruin everything. Next youd want to take your razor blade and lightly go over where you dont want the tape to block the paint. I followed the curve in on the once side and also along the ridged part on the opposite. I cant stress to press down all edges unless you want a crappy looking job. Ive seen too many guys not do this and have it end up garbage. After removing the adhesive and taping up your surfaces, youll have something like this.
Now the easy part. Take some light grit sand paper and scuff all painting surfaces. You dont have to take the chrome off, just enough to help with adhesion. After your finished, wipe the surface down with a degreaser. I used Greased Lighting. When youre all finished making sure your surfaces are clean of all dirt and oils that may have gotten there from your hands. Go out and paint. I used a couple coats of the flat black on mine but you can do whatever you want to here.
Once everything is nice and dry (took only minutes for me since it was almost 100 degrees out) pick at the tape and peel it off. Take a rag or your shirt and wipe off any tape residue or fingerprints from the chrome. You wont be able to later.
I forgot to take picture of the next steps. Next youd want to take your sealer and fill in the channels. Press the plastic cover back into the housing. I used pieces of duct tape to hold the light together while it cured a little bit. You can see the one light off to the side in this next picture. After I felt that it was good enough, I took the tape off gently and filled in any gaps around the clear plastic to the housing. Also making sure to put a good bead inside where the foglight opening is. It still shows up white in the pictures, but will eventually all cure clear and wont be noticeable. After about 1hr to do the prep paint and reassembly, i let the lights sit for a good 5-6hrs periodically checking them and filling the seals as mentioned before.
After the time to let them set up, just reverse the process that you did to take them out. Im currently letting mine sit overnight on the car with the turn signal bulbs out to let the air get in and cure everything. If its going to rain in youre area, Id suggest taking them inside and letting them sit in the house over night.
And lastly, here is one with a test on the car. If you have black lights, this would look better but right now it looks out of place on mine since I didnt do the headlights yet and havent gotten around to making my custom grill. Im still unsure if I truely like it or not. Its up in the air but a work in progress.
