anyone familiar painting the inside housing of their stock headlights black before?was it hard to open it up? and does ne one have pics?

 

i just changed out my driver side headlight housing and it was all dirty and rusted on the inside because of a hole in it. it drove me nuts for how dim it was driving on the highway at night, i couldnt imagine having the housing not reflect any light at all, you wouldnt be able to see anything at night.

as for opening up the housing there are some metal clips you have to get off, and then you have to use a heat gun to melt the epoxy stuff in the middle to separate the glass from the metal housing. atleast thats the way ive seen it done.. but to be honest i think it would be more work that it is worth. check out this months issue of honda tuning i think it is, its the one with the turbo ef on the cover. they have a whole writeup on how to put in projection headlights or something like that, and they have like 2 pages on how to get the housing opened to install stuff.

 

Our ED/EF's use a reflector style bulb/headlamp...

Take at look at the bulb and notice how it has a ceramic coating on the tip/leading edge. It prevents light from emitting directly to the glass lens. So all the light the bulb produces comes from the rear half, which in turn reflects off the inner-housing, which has a mirrored coating of some sort. That in turn gets directed to the glass lens and gives the beam pattern.

Now think about what you are proposing and how much light would actually be produced then...

If you had true projector type headlamps you can get away with whatever color/coating on the inner housing, since all it really affects is asthetics. If you are considering using projector style bulbs or scratching off the coating on a reflector bulb, don't. The glass lens was designed for the reflector type and the beam pattern will be less than ideal.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by sanimalp &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
as for opening up the housing there are some metal clips you have to get off, and then you have to use a heat gun to melt the epoxy stuff in the middle to separate the glass from the metal housing. atleast thats the way ive seen it done.. but to be honest i think it would be more work that it is worth. check out this months issue of honda tuning i think it is, its the one with the turbo ef on the cover. they have a whole writeup on how to put in projection headlights or something like that, and they have like 2 pages on how to get the housing opened to install stuff. </TD></TR></TABLE>

sweet, I've wondering about this too, but no one replied before. you say thats in july's HT?

 

i've opened up accord headlights. take off all metal hardware and clips. then 12min in a 200-250° oven, and careful prying. easy.

http://www.cb7tuner.com/vbb/sh...black

 

I would think that the heat from the bulbs will melt the **** out of the paint. unless you have some special paint.

 

To get the headlights open, you're going to want to 'bake' them. This process requires you to put the headlights in the oven on about 225 degrees for about 5 or so minutes and then use a flathead screwdriver to crack them open.

To reseal them, just use caulk and make sure you get a good seal, because you don't want any moisture leaks.

 

yeah its in the honda tuning with the cover that says old school boost, and it has a turbo ef on the cover. not sure if its june or july, but i just bought it off the shelf like a week ago.

 

i've never done 'em before but i have friends who have on thier em1's and ek hatchbacks and they all say it's a piece of cake

i think i'm actualy doing this today also with a buddy that just bought a ek hatch...if you were local i'd tell ya to swing by and do the project with us...anyhow, i'll let you know how it goes