New Mod: OEM Headlight Black Out
I have a weird obsession with not having chrome on vehicles and the last bit left is in the headlights. I have been pushing for a stock look on the front of this truck, and after a year, I am caving in.
Before getting started on pulling the headlights apart I took the time to hit them with a decent restoration kit from Meguiar's. Honestly I didn't expect it to do as well as it did. Took the nasty foggy lights and made them look like new.
First I went around the housing and pulled all of the small screws located around the edges. Next I set the oven to 200 degrees and then baked for 7-9 minutes. The seal on the first headlight still felt a little tough at 7 minutes and 9 seemed to work better. I have found that I like setting the oven shelf at about a 1/4 of the way up.
As a little tip: have a pair of thick gloves on and ready to go when you pull the headlight out of the oven. I use the biggest flat head screw driver and I work my way around the edges loosening the seal as I pry them apart with my hands. Avoid getting the seal inside of the headlight lens and shrouds as much as possible. It is incredibly sticky and is difficult to remove.
Once they are out of the oven and pried apart, there are little screws holding the chrome trim to the clear lens. In addition to the screws there are a few plastic clips holding it in. These do take a little bit of force to remove.
It was at this point I realized how broken my housings were. My headlight was hit by a piece of exploding furniture on the highway one day and broke all of the tabs on the outside of the headlight. I hadn't know that the damage actually carried over and broke the plastic inside the headlight as well. I will be replacing these soon I am sure.
With the headlights broken down I hit the chrome pieces with some steal wool and sand paper to create a solid surface for the paint. I went with a can of black gloss Colormaxx. My last truck had matte black retrofits and I wanted something a little glossier.
I did leave the reflectors for the high beam and blinker chrome as I need those to still function properly. I gave the paint a day to totally off gas before I reassembled them. In my last truck I missed this important step and found myself rebaking my headlights several times trying to clear out all the film on the inside of the housing.
Once they are totally dry, I repeated all of the steps above backwards and sealed them up. I had enough of the OEM seal left that I could just reheat and use that. If you dont have enough to form a proper seal, I recommend RetroRubber from The Retrofit Source.
All in all, I am pretty satisfied with how they turned out. I might make some slight changes on my next set of headlights as far as color and projectors go. But for now this absolutely gets the job done.
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Silver 2007 4Runner Limited V8 –
BUILD THREAD
Owner at Sherpa Equipment Co. (Formerly Rocky Mountain Racks)