DIY: Painting your headlights

Big Thanks to Kane and his Evilution Guide.

DIY: Painting your headlights.

Disclaimer:
Use these instructions and clear your headlights at your own risk. I will not be responsible for fogged up headlights, broken headlights, melted headlights, or any other stupid things people might do to their headlights. I am also not responsible if you cut yourself, burn yourself, electrocute yourself, or sustain any kind of injury while clearing your headlights. In other words, I will not be responsible for ANY kind of injury or damage (physical, mental, spiritual, whatever) that occur during the process of clearing your headlights.



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1. You will need to remove side skirts and front panels.

a. instructions for removing sideskirts:

Evilution - Smart Car Encyclopaedia

b. instructions for removing front panels:

FQ101 : Smart Car Modifications


2. Remove headlight:

Evilution - Smart Car Encyclopaedia

3. Open headlight:

Evilution - Smart Car Encyclopaedia


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Remove all the bulbs. Now is the fun part begin.....
I personally prefer heat gun for this job, but you can bake your headlights in the oven. I recommend 200F for 10 minutes on the lower shelf. Preheat oven to 200F, place wet towel on the baking sheet and put headlight on top CLEAR FACE DOWN. Once headlight assembly is heated, I suggest to start to pull from the corner because you can get a good grip, if the headlight does not pull apart, then heat it at 200F again for another 4 minutes, and try again. Keep heating it with short intervals until the headlight can be pulled open. I`m using special plastic tool for prying headlight open, but you can use flat screwdriver. Take your time. It took me about 25 minutes for each headlight to pop them open because I used heat gun and I heated one section at a time. Try not to get gunk on the inside of your headlight.



4. I decided to remove orange reflector, so I just used small pliers to break one out piece by piece.

5. To remove turn signal cover push from the side with small (micro) screwdriver on the tab you see in the photo and cover will just pop out.





6. Use sand paper to remove silver paint from the headlight. I started with 150 grit and finished with 400 grit paper. If you do not do it you have a chance that paint will start to flake.



7. I used KRYLON FUSION for plastic black gloss paint and KRYLON CYSTAL CLEAR flat clear coat. Tip: Spray light coats, wait at least 10 minutes between recoats. I did 3-4 coats of paint and 2 coats of clear. If you have overspray, bumps or any other imperfections you not happy with, just wait till paint is dry, sand it and respray it again.
Also I added red stripes ( but I`m not happy with results, I might repaint it later with red or solid black ).
Once you are happy wit results wait 8 hours before assembling your headlight, so paint will have time to cure.


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To be continued