Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Hey guys

Im looking at taking my wife's v35 head lights apart and painting the insides back and polishing up the lenses.

I have never done this before so any help would be great.

I plan on starting it on Friday night and finishing it by Sunday night as this is her daily car.

Does anyone have any suggestions with method? paint? what not to paint etc?

Any help would be much appreciated

Thanks

Kris

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/443329-v35-headlight-modifications/
Share on other sites

I finished mine a few months ago, split the headlights painted surrounds and resealed. Fairly simple stuff, the mistake I made - and it was a huge mistake - was to try and clear coat the lights for more protection/shine. I'd watched some youtube videos of people clear coating with great success, apparently they wern't using acrylic. When I sprayed the lights they looked good for a few minits then they literaly melted! The fist milimeter or two of the light surface crazed like a turtle shell. I ended up sanding from 300 up to 2000 to get a clear lense again - literaly days of sanding and polishing.

Anyway, the process is all over the net, take out the screws (about 3 or 4 from memory), bang em in the oven and pry them appart (google the temps). The lights are made up of lots of pieces, so painting them is easy. If you want to get rid of the orange indicator you need to cut it out, I just wanted my lights back together at this stage. A full weekend is just enough time to do it right. I used auto paint for the satin black - no clear coat. I wouldn't try and polish the inside, it has some tight corners that would be virtualy impossible to do right.

IMG_1947_zps0c40b1f5.jpg

IMG_1946_zps40986c2c.jpg

IMG_1949_zps2e28ca57.jpg

cheers for the reply bud,

whats your lights like at night??? i see you painted most of the light black, looks great but i was worried about the lights not being bright enough coz they cant "reflect as much?

The reflector is separate, painting the surround doesn't effect the light output. If you look at the surround you will see that there is no surface that helps light output, they are just for looks. There is a separate section to the high beam light that is under the low beam tube (hard to explain) I didn't paint that. The early lights don't even have that part.

So, im gonna start taking the lights out tonight.

anyone have any suggestions on best way????

i knoe front bar has to come off, which is gonna be fun but anything else we should remove to amke it easier???

i ahve also tried googling the temperature we should use to take lights apart in oven but can see to find anyhing consistant

There are 4 bolts and wiring holding in the lights (also indicators in bar), once you drop the bar you will see them, one in the engine bay at the top, one in the side, 2 at the front.

Can be done by undoing the top and sides of the bar and pulling it forward, very high chance of scratching the paint unless you tape the sides... even then?

So, after a loooooong weekend the lights are finally done.

Took a lot longr than what i thought, being old lights the insides had a few cracks on them, i tried to repair them but just didnt look right, so cleaned them up and tarted again, ypu cant really see the cracks anyway once the lights back together.

Faitly simple process, but polishing the clear lenses took the longest, there was a film on the inside of one and it took about 4 hours to clean off.

Heres a few pics of how they turned out, will post a pic of them on the car soon once i have chance to take a better picc in the day time.

When prying them apart though i lost some of the glue, i had some sikiflex that i used to put on her roof spoiler so i used some of that. seems to be good s its been raining since sunday and no water in lights so very happy

post-107907-0-03098200-1401318194_thumb.jpg

post-107907-0-45228700-1401318197_thumb.jpg

post-107907-0-77762100-1401318199_thumb.jpg

post-107907-0-77222600-1401318201_thumb.jpg

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Don't "upload" the pictures. Just copy the picture direct from somewhere (I usually am pasting screenshots or something else that I have on the clipboard as an image, not as a file" and just paste it direct into the post editor. Just like you were pasting it into a Word doc or something. You can't damage something if you lift it where you are supposed to. If you look carefully at the correct jacking points, you will see that they are reinforced right there. And nowhere else. That is where the "foot" of the factory jack is supposed to sit. That's why you need rubber pads with slots. 10mm might not be deep enough. Note also that the slots are not required if the pinchweld has already been slammed flat. You could just lift it at the correct spot with a flat pad, because the damage is already done. No point in making worse though, if it is recoverable. IF. Yes, that's called a chassis rail. You can lift carefully on these, if you spread the load. A decent block of wood is good. But keep in mind what I said before. Any time you start doing this sort of thing, you are off the normal path and into "be bloody careful", because it is obviously not stable. Dumb. The refinforcement is already there. See above.
    • yeah looks like they've been lifted there previously but with solid not slitted rubber blocks. I'd just bend them back (combination of vice grips or hammer with some sort of drift, then hit the area with underbody protection paint. As for the siderails, I'd call those chassis rails and that is exactly what I meant about being careful with the balance point. You can probably lift off them at the point where the 2 pieces overlap, but you need to be careful with the forward balance of the car if you do when the engine is in....sills are a better choice. I guess you could weld some reinforcement in the sill area near the jacking points but it shouldn't be necessary if you use blocks with a slit. If you do want to reinforce it I'd use square section equal or taller than the seam and then just use flat rubber blocks for lifting
    • driver side sidemember and jacking point (looks the worst by far) driver side rear jack point passenger side sidemember and jack point passenger side rear jack point   Ignore my mug on the last photo. Turns out I was just too stupid to properly use the forum's attachment feature previously
    • Fk me, I guess next time I will try to use the onsite attachments feature. I find it hard to work with so far though because I can't move the images to where I want them to be. I will try to make a separate post with just images. As for lifting. The work I need to do for now involves the exhaust and engine mainly, so the arm covering the jacking points is not a problem. But I don't want to bend in the whole sill or underfloor by lifting the car at the original jack points. I found some rubber blocks, 125 by 125 with a 10mm wide and 10mm deep cutout, which I'm hoping will work for not hitting the jacking rail. The sidemember, as seen in the service manual, are the rectangular frame rails that come from the front of the car and go alongside the gearbox and downpipe. Those that get crushed inwards if you use them for a floorjack. They are already slightly bent in from being used to hoist by other people. I think cutting off the jacking points and welding or bolting on a reinforcement plate along the sill might not be a dumb idea. Or is it dumb?     A 2 post hoist is what I'm gonna work with, but not for any underbody work, just leaky engine and exhaust work so far. Depends on what else I find that might need immediate attention. For metalwork on the sills I think I'd just bring the car to a panel beater. What's your take on getting rid of the original jacking rails and putting reinforcement plates along the sills?
    • Yeah titanium always looks cool but I don't need that, just regular pipes would be fine. But I am really struggling to find any full hardpipe kit that is still for sale.
×
×
  • Create New...