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GUIDE: DIY Painting inside headlight Bezels

20K views 6 replies 6 participants last post by  7.3SuperDuty 
#1 ·

Stock on the right, DIY painted on the Left.

Please read the note at the end, very important!

The reason why I took apart my headlights was because the headlight diffuser on my headlight came off, and there was dust collecting behind the lens. I wanted to fix the diffuser to insure it would not fall off, and clean the lens. So I decided to also paint the bezels black to look like the Harley Edition since I was going to go through the chance of breaking them anyways. Not the hardest task, except maybe convincing the wife or gf to allow you to shove a headlight into an oven LOL.

1: Remove headlights

2: Clean them the best you can, I used regular window cleaner, and it worked great.

3: Preheat over to 265*(my oven has accurate temp reading so be sure yours is not off), also put a pan on the bottom rack, to prevent direct heat from the oven to hit the bottom of the headlight.

4: Remove all headlight bulbs. There is also a screw towards the bottom of the headlight and holds the bezel/lens assembly to the headlight body. Mine did not have a screw in this spot(don't ask me why), but if yours does you must remove this screw.

5: Put head light into the oven, and allow them to heat up for about 15 minutes.


6: Slowly start to pry apart the head light. How I did this was first took a sharp tipped screwdriver and shoved it into the small crack between the lens and the plastic body of the headlight and slowly slid the screwdrive to sort of break the glue bond. Then I slowly gave it a little persuasion to help it start to separate. Prying very lightly and it will start to seperate. I had to put it in the oven a second and on one of the headlights a third time to get the lens to separate. After I got a little part lifted up, I pryed with my hands slowly, not trying to rip it off, but slowly getting the glue to release the lens.



7: Remove all the old glue from the headlight body and headlight lens. The glue may harden while you are trying to remove the old glue. If this happens, a few more minutes in the oven will get it back to something you can work with.


8: After seperating the lens from the headlight body, take the 2 torx screws holding the corner light(orange reflector) off. Then remove the two torx screws holding the bezel to the lens. Set the lens aside.



9: Take a scotchbrite pad and scuff the bezel so that the primer will stick. It should look similar to this...


10: Spray primer on the bezel. I used two medium coats. Follow the directions on the cans for flash time and time to top coat. Then spray the color of your choice on the bezel. I used three light coats of gloss black. Also if you wanted to, you could tint the corner light(orange reflector). To do this, I used VHT lens tint in the rattle can. I used 2 very light coats on it, and it appears to have a good shine through.


11. Clean the inside of both the headlight body, and the lens. When cleaning the lens, use a brand new non scratching cloth. You can very easily scratch the inside of the lens, so do not press very hard. Also beware of cleaning the chrome inside the headlight body, you more or less just want to "dust" the chrome.

12. Reinstall the corner light(reflector) into the bezel, then install the bezel into the lens.

13. To reglue the lens to the headlight body, I used urethane. I'm not 100% sure on what they used from the factory, but it seemed like urethane, and I trust urethane to do the job. I just went out and bought a tube of windshield glue(which is urethane). In the groove you cleaned out all the glue out of, apply a nice amount of urethane. I used a little over 1/2 of a full tube of urethane to do both headlights.


14. Reinstall the lens back onto the headlight body, being careful to apply it correctly the first time to insure it will have a good seal. Reinstall the screw that holds the bezel/lens assembly to the headlight body.

15. Clean up any excessive urethane that may have pressed out when you installed the lens. The urethane is extremely messy sh!t, be careful to not get any onto your hands and then tough anything. You will pay hell to try to remove the mess up urethane.

16. Reinstall headlight bulbs, and reinstall headlights. Then enjoy your results.



NOTE:

This was tested on a 2005 Ford OEM headlight, not a cheap knockoff headlight from eBay. I can't attest to how the non OEM headlight plastic strength is. If you attempt this on a non OEM headlight, take care to note that the temperature of the oven may be different to prevent it from melting.

Also, this can probably be done on other year headlights other than the 05 design. Im not sure about the 04 and older, but the newer ones also seem to have the same type of design to them.
 
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#5 ·
I should have put a 56K warning on the title LOL.



The before picture is from way back in the day when the 05 conversion was a very new thing, so that is why the front of the truck looks way better back then. I need to detail my truck badly now lol.





My truck is not leaning in the pictures, for some reason when I park there, the truck looks to be leaning. When I go to work, where the concrete is dead flat, the truck is also. Don't know why the hell parking that makes it look like that though.

Good Write up!
Thank you, it is the first one I have ever actually followed through and did completely LOL.

Anyone ever seen them with the bottom chrome housing painted also, where the orangle light is. Been think about doing this but dont want it to look like two eyes going down the road with only one chrome bowl on each. Sorry to hijac but just wanted some input. Nice writeup btw.
I thought about doing that same thing, but then I thought about how the chrome helps reflect the light out in a since to make it fill the entire housing. If I did paint it, it would just look like a light bulb and not fill the entire housing. Might be worth a try though.
 
#3 ·
Good Write up!
 
#4 ·
Anyone ever seen them with the bottom chrome housing painted also, where the orangle light is. Been think about doing this but dont want it to look like two eyes going down the road with only one chrome bowl on each. Sorry to hijac but just wanted some input. Nice writeup btw.
 
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