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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Re chroming Headlight Rings


CarlT67
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I had a go at using chrome vinyl wrap on the rings and here are the pictures....

 

Before with the chrome missing

image

 

 

Just the bottom half done

image

 

 

One headlight done

image

 

 

The left headlight together

image

 

....and the right

image

 

 

I wet sanded the headlights using 2500 grit and then 3000 grit finishing with Plastx.

 

Im happy with the results, the rings look good and from a distance you can't tell the difference. They aren't as good as new Facelifts of course however they aren't bad just for a £10 sheet of chrome vinyl off ebay.

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Ive just bought some chrome spray paint from silver hook chemicals, apparently it does a good job of looking chrome. About to primer the inserts tomorrow, after that has dried im going to give the chrome rings a go, i will post up pictures once finished...hopefully its a good finish!!!

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That seems to be the best result i've seen so far! I just really don't like the idea of ripping the headlights apart, in my experience getting a good seal when putting them back together is very difficult, so beware of them steaming up.. It has been the bain of my supra owning life for years!

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Nice work Carl! They look really good. I'd be pretty chuffed with that result. :) Did the vinyl go on as one piece for each ring? How did you get it to go on so flat?

 

If you look closely you can see that I did the rings in patches, I only covered the areas missing chrome.

 

The Vinyl is applied fairly easily, just take patients and a small blast of low level heat from a heat gun to aid the shaping and application of the vinyl. I think its probably the closest looking finish to the reflective chrome you can get with out actually rechroming them.

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Ive just bought some chrome spray paint from silver hook chemicals, apparently it does a good job of looking chrome. About to primer the inserts tomorrow, after that has dried im going to give the chrome rings a go, i will post up pictures once finished...hopefully its a good finish!!!

 

Be great to see result mate

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Just got some photos from Simon at Chromespray about 10 minutes ago. Work in progress at last with my facelift inserts. Painter should be in tomorrow to add the 1A1 paint around the rings then hopefully, fingers crossed, I'll have them before the bank holiday weekend!

insert01.jpg

insert02.jpg

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Just got some photos from Simon at Chromespray about 10 minutes ago. Work in progress at last with my facelift inserts. Painter should be in tomorrow to add the 1A1 paint around the rings then hopefully, fingers crossed, I'll have them before the bank holiday weekend!

 

They look good Mike :thumbs:

 

Simon emailed me today to tell me he would hope to turn mine around in 10 days if all goes well, he attached a couple of photo's of yours to show me. I think i'll see how my diy efforts turn out first, if I balls it up i'll maybe send them to him :)

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Just got some photos from Simon at Chromespray about 10 minutes ago. Work in progress at last with my facelift inserts. Painter should be in tomorrow to add the 1A1 paint around the rings then hopefully, fingers crossed, I'll have them before the bank holiday weekend!

 

Nice! How much is that setting you back?

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Hey Tom. I tried to fix these myself. All I needed to do was a little blow over on the gret where some had flaked away. But when the chrome pulled away under the masking tape it all went downhill and had to find someone to fix it. This has taken 3 months since I first sent them in. I explained to him that if he can sort out those times he may have more customers from here. It a common problem that the chrome degrades, leaving a choice between replacing the whole light clusters or having a pop at fixing them yourself.

 

Scutch, I was quoted about £100 to refurbish just the 2 full beam rings. As this job got a bit out of hand with time and extra bits having to be done due to Simons masking tape ripping, I'm ending up getting a full refurb at the same price.

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Nice! How much is that setting you back?

 

Scutch, I was quoted £170 for them to do a pair of facelift lights (price includes sending back to me), Mikes getting a real bargain for £100, the company must have realised the job is more complicated than they first thought so raised the price somewhat :D.

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