DIY: VIDEO!! Baking 370z Headlights for Paint, LED's etc

Mike

yeah, the orange reflector is actually two pieces, joined where the 90 degree is. You take the top one off first, then the smaller bottom one. THey are just held in with a couple of plastic heat welds on the outside and some small tabs inside. Then use a soldering iron to reweld them together after painting.

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Big J

Great write up.

What kind of paints did you use, ESP for the blue?

ZCarMan

Great documentation and effort! Repped!

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Jon

Dallaz

I used Krylon fusion (fusion adheres to plastics, regular Krylon paint does not) gloss black in a spray can for the housings after wiping them down with prep solvent which may or may not be necessary, but I had ordered it with my paint so I used it in case there were oils from my hands/fingers on the housing, and to help get it all dry from the solvent in the small corner area I used my rocket blower I have for my camera lenses.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1361343501.267603.jpg

You want to make sure all your cleaning agent is 100000% dry (exaggeration duh) before you lay down your first coat or it will not look pretty.

That was all I did for the housings. Clean, then probably 6-7 coats total of gloss black because I did light coats from different angles each time to get every little crease/crevice. no sanding or clear coat afterwards for me, I believe most people do the same, I don't know if clear coat works as well with the Krylon "fusion" as their regular Krylon paint or if its just as effective, however I will tell you when I painted my door handles and emblems, the clear left it looking more dull and less glossy, most likely because I didn't follow up with light sanding/polish afterwards but I'll never know.

For the color matched paint, I ordered it from Automotive Touchup. Their stuff is excellent! As you can see its a perfect match.

Go to their site and put in your make, model, year, and what not and it will pull up the factory paint codes that you can order in spray cans, paint pens, buckets, however you want it, you can get it.

When I did my shrouds I also used their

gray scuff pad $1-2(gray is their lightest scuff pad I believe, they have them rated by color), followed up with the

prep solvent $2-3 before doing my few coats of

adhesion promoter $7,

base coat (your paint color) $20ish, and lastly used their

Clear coat $7 as well to finish it off and that was that.

I think
That's all the supplies but I'll look back and see

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Dallaz

Thank you!

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Dallaz

Tada,

I found my pics I took of everything woohooo!


Note: I did not use the primer.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1361344485.618150.jpg

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1361344523.833943.jpg

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1361344553.217166.jpg

Not sure why I didn't include those in the main post.

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SurfDog

bump

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pbhakta

So I decided to open up my headlights this weekend for painting and this Video was perfect. My first time around opening the headlights was frustrating. I have a gas stove and oven in which I put the temp at 250 for 11 mins the first time. I was able to barely seperate the headlight enough to get the screw driver in there. I had to put it back in for 5 mins then another 6 mins in order to finally get it apart. For the second headlight, I decided to go with 250 for 15 mins. Low and behold, it came apart in less than 3 mins. I realized that scoring the entire headlight with the screw driver helped the most just like it was mentioned in the video even before trying to pull it apart.. After scoring around the light, then I would start to pull apart from the front and it was a breeze.

Also, if you don't hear that crackle sound when your scoring the headlight, you know you need to put it back in the oven.

Thanks for the great videos, it was the confidence booster I needed to do this myself. I'm half way there, now just paint and put back together and hopefully all is well.

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Dallaz

Nice man, thanks for the comments and your contribution to the thread as well.

Let us know how it goes, your past the scary part, take your time on the paint and then just put everything back together slowly to not scratch your newly painted surfaces. I put mine back together and baked them just an hour or two after painting.

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pbhakta

When you reheat and put the main screws back in , mine seem to go in fine but keep turning and never get completely tight to the point it stops turning. Did anyone else's do this as well or do I need to force the lens in closer? From what I can tell everything lines up and there is just a tiny gap all the way around. From what i remember it was like that to begin with just enough space to get the screwdriver in.

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2

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Dallaz

Yeah I believe that tiny gap stays there between the plastic although it is sealed tight. It was very obvious with mine that it was pressed all the way together though, after heating it in the oven for 10-12 minutes the sealant was gooey enough to just press real tight and it went back together perfectly. One thing that might make a difference is if you have someone hold it together real tight while you screw each one in, that's what I did, you don't want your seal to be anything less than perfect.

Also I felt resistance but didn't force the screw too much because I'm sure it would be easy to strip those plastic threads.

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AeroJacket Lip Kit | GTR switch | NISMO S-Knob | Blacked-Out-EVERYTHING| 5% Tint | Carbon Fangs/Upper Trim | VOSSEN CV3's | Painted Headlights | CF Diffuser

Dallaz

Getting ready to paint a new set of lights here in the next few days. I'll post before and afters here.

A note to the pearl white owners the paint costs $40 for your color from automotive Touchup because its a Tri-stage paint or whatever they call it and requires 2 seperate $20 spray cans to get a perfect match before the clear coat.

Here's a picture of the project car

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1364869917.052085.jpg

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AdamRacer

Awesome DIY! I watched your videos and decided it was time to do a major change to them headlights. The videos helped a lot with all the ideas given such as oven temp, using a damp cloth under lights, and timing. Thank you for sharing!!

Here's some pictures of how mine turned out. I flip-flopped the norm black housing and blue shrouds.

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Dallaz

That looks awesome. Nice job

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Dzel

Thinking of doing this next weekend

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