These headlights looks awesome!!

 

looks great man.

 

Oooh. That looks really nice. Looks professionally painted too! It definitely goes well on an IP

 

I would not sand them down as it can make them foggy. If you do, use a very high gritt and then polish them.

 

I used flat black sandable primer. (Duplicolor). After removing the bezels, we sanded them down with 400 grit sandpaper for about 45 (or more) minutes, removing all the chrome/shine. On the slotted sections, we made sure to go with the lines. Put on two thin coats of the primer and sanded down any imperfections. Put on another coat. At this point, it looked so good, we stopped there and just started applying more thin coats. After the initial 2, we added another 5 more thin coats and it was done. If you plan to go with a semi-gloss or gloss paint, I recommend doing our initial plan....after the 400 sand of the primer, add one more coat of primer and then start sanding that base with 600, then 1000 then, 1500 then finally with 2000. You may be able to get away with less sanding if your bezels are nice and smooth like mine came out.

Yep. I bought an actual cover for a fixture vs. a flat insert piece (~$13 for the cover). The cover was twice as thick as the panel sheets you can buy.

The original plan called for a projector retro-fit to replace the turn signal lenses. The projector was literally 1 to 2 mm too big! So, we scrapped it and went for the clear lense. I'm already planning for a projector retro-fit once I find some that will work I have another set of bezels to play with and pefect for when that day comes

If you want to do work on the lenses, I would do them on the car so they are stable and secure. I winded up ordering new headlights from ebay (none OEM) so I swapped out the old lense for the new. I did the sand and polish to my OEM set...didnt work out for me. PM me and I can give you the details on what to do if you want to give it a try

You're using primer first right? then the paint? Use a cardboard piece or old credit card and wrap the sandpaper around that. Remember, you just want to sand it down to get the smooth/shiny surface roughed up and not enough to sand it down. See my first response to g35freak for the process.

Thanks everyone for your comments/compliments. DIY always has a great feeling of accomplishment, even when you don't do all the work yourself.

Feel free to post up more questions here or send me a PM.

 

Very Nice! How much do you charge?

 

lol
$1000 per light

If you're local, some good pizza and beer

EDIT: You are local...make that a years supply of pizza (and light beer)

 

You don't need to sand that far.

You can prime and sand with 400 then use a sealer primer and paint. Then wetsand with ~600-800 and clear. If you have nasty orange peal or overspray, you can wetsand the clear with ~1200.

 

^That's experience talk right there Thanks ttrank

 

hmmm... i think that may be my problem.. i just sanded and painted it...i think i gotta do it over again.. arghh

 

Primer is your friend. The base is the most important part.
Sand it back down using 400. Primer it with two THIN coats (about 10 minutes in between each coat), then sand it again with 400 to get rid of any imperfections. One more coat of primer. See how that looks and if it needs more sanding and primer.

Are you doing a black flat finish? or gloss? See ttranks notes above too

 

I used flat black duplicolor. I don't think I want to put clear on though, i like the super flat look

 

Make sure you use a BLACK primer for the base (NOT grey) as the black will wind up looking like like a real dark grey instead of black if you go with the grey primer.

The black primer might even be dark enough for you. We not only used it on my headlights but we did it on a set of 06 coupe headlights as well. Thin coats...

 

What type of silicon do you use to re-seal the lights(if you had to)...i'm seriously doing this this weekend...

 

No sealer was used. Once we were done we put them back together, threw it back in to bake (14 minutes at 215). Pulled them out and pushed/seated them back together. Its been raining here for the last two days (especially today). I'm going home now to re-check for condensation.

This process has been used in the past (no-sealer applied) and has worked so far so I don't think I will have any issues as well. (fingers crossed ).