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Painting Headlight Internals?


urban4

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Has anyone gone the distance with their headlights and painted all the internals body colour etc? If so did you do it yourself or did you have a professional remove the lens cover (in the oven) and paint them?

 

I've heard CINCITY in the US do it but I've been waiting 3 months for side reflectors so don't fancy it!

 

Plus if you've got projector headlights what's the score with the MOT?

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  • 1 year later...
  • 1 month later...
Thats why i havent tried...i wanted these but dont know if they are off a newer zed, a random aftermarket light or someone has D.I.Y them???

 

nope - they are the same model as the one in your profile pic. Most likely that someone has DIY'd them.... risky business!

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It's one thing that I really want to get done on my car, new front headlights. Some of the custom LED ones I've seen around the web just look stunning. Shame there isn't someone on the forum that does them or somewhere in the UK that is reputable, unless there is secretly!

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there must be someone somewhere that can do this...it will go well with your new rear leds eh Tom :lol::lol: im only joking i missed out by like minutes i too like you have been hunting for a while im sure your zed will look ace with them :thumbs:

all web ones seem U.S originated and like coldel says the beams will point wrong way then.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've got a set of painted 06+ headlights fitted to my Z. Me and a mate used a head gun to get them apart as neither of our ovens were big enough. To be honest the heat gun would be my prefered method anyway, at least then you're only heating up the bits you need to heat, an oven is a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut IMO. Just keep the gun moving and go around the whole edge of the casing. After around 5 minutes of this the sealant goes very gooey and you can then start to pull the lights apart. An extra pair of hands to help heat up / cut any stubborn bits of sealant really helps here.

 

Once they were apart we disassembled them and I gave the plastic pieces to the bodyshop for painting. I went with the same gloss black as my wheels, door handles, etc for most of the bits, but did the central plastic piece around the projector lens in Audi Ibis White to match the paintwork of my car. The bodyshop loved me for asking them to paint that bit! :lol: I'd really recommend shelling out the money to get the headlight bits painted properly, the finish on the gloss black pieces was well worth the extra dosh and the piece of mind of knowing the paintwork will last without bubbling etc is nice. You don't want to have to split the buggers again if you can help it! ;)

 

Whilst they were apart I also added some Sti clear projector lenses (i.e. non-fresnel type for sharper beam cutoff) and some new 5000K Morimoto headlight bulbs.

 

Once that was all done we reheated and cleaned out all of the old sealant leaving a nice clean channel for the lens to sit in and then added all new sealant, a bit more heat and then gave them a good squeezing together. We then put some clamps on them and left them to cool off for an hour or so before refitting.

 

Oh, and make sure you don't forget to reconnect the 4 orange marker LEDs on one of the headlights or you'll have to split it and reseal all over again!! :blush::bang::lol:

 

I'm really pleased with the end result, it's totally transformed the look of the front on my 53 plate Z and was well worth all the effort. They've been fitted for about 3 or 4 months now and there's been no fogging up whatsoever. I don't have any pics at the moment but when I give the car a good clean over Xmas I'll get some taken.

 

Regarding CinCity, I've been seeing bad feedback on them for years on My350Z. I've seen reports of long delays, bad workmanship and people not getting their lights back so I would definitely avoid them at all costs. There really is no room for cutting corners on this job so you need to make sure you give it to a company you can trust. The only company that would ever get my lights and cash is ClearCorners. They're very expensive and you'll probably be waiting 3 months (or more) but their work is top quality. Having done the job myself I can see why they charge the prices they do.

 

As others have said, if you get a company in the US to do this mod you'll have to send a set of UK spec headlights to them first which is another cost to consider, a set of headlights with all the required packaging is a BIG box. :(

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