Facelift headlight refurb photo's

Bought some facelift headlights that needed refurbing recently and thought i'd post up some photo's of my efforts.

There's loads of threads on how to go about doing this yourself so I won't bore you all with details, basically the steps were:

1) Put headlights in the oven 100 degrees for 10 mins each, they pulled apart by hand, no tools needed.

2) Remove all the old sealant (some people recommend re-using it but I wanted to put new stuff in).

3) Polish up lenses inside and out with plasticX by hand, then done a load of sanding with 1500 followed by 2000 grit wet and dry (use plenty of water). To finish I used an electric buffer/polisher with plasticX again on both the inside and the outside (make sure there is no grit on the inside of the lense before you start polishing).

4) Sanded down then painted the headlight inserts matt black (I used a plastic primer first), masked them off then painted the rings silver (matches the colour of the car, but to be honest that was a fluke), final step was to laquer the silver rings to give them a bit of shine.

5) Fill up the gap where the old sealant was in the base of the headlight unit with windscreen sealant (bought from ebay and used a silicone gun to apply).

6) Fit headlight insert into lense first, then push both parts back onto the headlight base, attaching all the little metal clips around the outside that hold it together to pull it back into place.

7) Wipe off any excess sealant around the outside of the headlight unit.

8) Removed my existing headlights on the car and fitted the refurbed set.

I must admit, I was nervous about doing this as I thought i'd balls it up (thats why I bought another set of lights to practice on).

It really isn't difficult, just a bit time consuming. I'd urge anyone to give it a try.

I'm going to do my other set of facelifts next as they are in better condition to start with, I thought they were quite good condition really but they are yellowed on the inside when compared to the refurbed ones.

Hope you enjoy the photo's, I know I like looking at these sort of threads

Photo's are in no particular order, mainly because i'm useless with computers and most likely cocked it up when uploading them.

Cheers

Tom

Great effort Tom! They look very clean on the car!

Very nice, I also like the way that your intercooler mirrors the shapes of the outer bumper vents.

Nice work, sir.

Nice work

nice work mate

well done

ah mate looks awesome

Thanks guys It is a massive improvement even if I do say so myself.

Cool!! Good job Tom

That looks great Tom. Well done.

Thanks Peter, thanks Mike, have you got your lights back yet?

In short, no. One insert is complete, the other lost some lacquer on the chrome as the masking tape was removed. Bugger.. Simon said his heart dropped when that happened. Spoke to him on Friday, he's working the weekend and he's sure mine will be done early next week. Thinking of maybe going to Japfest. Last minute decision though so no club spot for me.

The silver rings work very well on your car. Nicely done.

In short, no. One insert is complete, the other lost some lacquer on the chrome as the masking tape was removed. Bugger.. Simon said his heart dropped when that happened. Spoke to him on Friday, he's working the weekend and he's sure mine will be done early next week. Thinking of maybe going to Japfest. Last minute decision though so no club spot for me.

 

The silver rings work very well on your car. Nicely done.

Sorry to hear that, hope you get them back soon, it'll definitely be worth the wait though. Don't forget to post up a few photo's of the finished job

Yeah, I think the silver rings suit the car, definitely better than the all black look I had on my original lights, i'd prefer the chrome look tbh though, I'm going to try doing my other set with some of that chrome spray paint instead, to be honest it probably won't look any different to the first set but i'll give it a go.

My plan is to sell the set that I prefer the least to pay for the pair that I bought to practice on and the materials/paint i've used.