well, half a day doing this.. talk about a PITA..





I apologize for the bad quality pix, low lighting stinks

 

Doug, was the outcome good? tough to do? or were u just being meticulous?

 

The outcome was not as bad as I thought it would be with people harping about how mangled the units looked after the mod.

I dunno about being meticulous but I just didn't want to break anything as it would be extremely costly to replace the lamps.

Now for the first lamp that I modded, it did come out a little mangled but overall, it wasn't that bad. The second lamp came out much nicer as I knew what not to do from modding the first one.

All I can say is that heating up the headlamp housing at the bottom first and gradually prying away at it and moving to the sides and eventually the top of the housing keeps it clean. I just opened it up enough to be able to remove the reflector and orange lense to minimize any scarring of the headlamp unit.

But I dunno, I definitely would not recommend people doing this as it takes a ridiculous amount of time (if you're using a hairdryer like I was) and the fact that it gets messy with all the black goo.

If you have money to burn, pay the $120 to have someone do it for you, but if you're a cheap bastard like me who has plenty of time on the weekends, then try it out.

 

Some more pix taken during the day..

 

What a difference this mod makes in the overall look of your car. Did you consider heating the assembly in an oven? I was waiting to see another black car with this mod before I attempted mine. I just took Thursday off from work to do this. Wicked cool. Did you replace the bulbs with amber ones?

 

That definitely looks good on the black cars.

 

Is there an in-depth thread on how to do this? I can't find it and am about to do it....

 

That's a scary job to tackle. In the U.K. we get the clear lenses as standard, but we have to have an amber bulb. Don't you have to fit an amber bulb after this conversion.

 

The clear side markers come with the amber bulbs if you buy the real JDMs, but the headlamps you have to cross-reference and pick an amber bulb that fits... You'll look pretty dumb with a white turn signal if you dont...

 

Right.... Doug hasn't replaced his bulbs yet, or perhaps it's just hard to tell in the pics. I can see why you'd want to do it, those amber lenses do nothing for the car. Must get round to replacing my amber side repeaters..