Going to start de-chroming the head lamps, but need to start with the rings.

How do the clips come off for the rings around the head lights. The threads say pop them off, but how?

Don't want to break the attachments. For those who have done this, would you now rather have them painted or vinyl wrapped?

 

A friend did mine a few months ago, personally, I would rather have them done in vinyl as the MINI is so prone to rock chips, the paint would just have to be redone all the time. The vinyl can be redone in about 20 minutes, and would be a lot cheaper to replace if need be. When we did mine, the first attempt was done with the rings still on the car...didn't work very well. He popped the rings off, very carefully, and then wrapped them in vinyl and popped them back in. Took about 20 minutes and was painless. The rings really do just "pop off" just go slow and be easy with them, and they should come off without giving you any problems. Next month we're doing my tail light rings...can't wait!!!

 

Able to work through it without breaking anything. Dealer is 2 hours away, so no mistakes! I'm a complete neewbie with doing this, so hand holding is welcome.

Here's some pics. Find the tab and using a screwdriver, push the flat part away from you towards the open area of the hole. With some jiggling the chrome ring will unseat itself and lift up a little at a time as you unseat the tabs. Gradually lifting the ring upwards away from the hood will help with the next one.

 

now all we need is some pics of the blacked out rings!

 

Didn't black them out. Went with same color.

Adding viper stripes at MOTD and felt the black rings would detract. It's easier to paint over Mellow Yellow than black, lol. As soon as I get up enough courage, I will Joey mod the lights, but still deciding on the design.

 

Didn't black them out. Went with same color.

Adding viper stripes at MOTD and felt the black rings would detract. It's easier to paint over Mellow Yellow than black, lol. As soon as I get up enough courage, I will Joey mod the lights, but still deciding on the design.

Will post once the rings are dry and back on the car.

 

Turned out great. Threw in the gas cap while I was painting. Now for tail light rings once I can figure how to get those off!

Trying to figure out how a joey mod will look with viper stripes. Yellowed out with black accents, or blacked out with yellow accents?

 

looks good!

 

I like it! Im triyng to deside if im gonna black out my rings, or paint em. How about your grill? Poss. paint the surround?

 

keep it up

 

Thanks for all the great kudos.

Playing with a cheaper version of paint shop. Can't decide if surround should be black or mellow yellow. Viper stripes have a lot of black. And I have to take off the fog lights to de-chrome.

 

Those look great. I hope they hold up well. I painted the white driving light covers on my car. They got chipped up in no time.

 

Check out my covers front and rear. LOVE the way they turned out!

 

You're right they do look great. I'm going to do my grill surround as soon as I can take my running lights off. How did you "pop" off the tail light rings?
Is this another one of those, just lift up a corner with a screwdriver thing, or can you pop off a snap by doing that?

Found a link for that.

 

hmm Vinyl or Paint? I would like longivity, convenience and good price..?

 

I'm curious about the vinyl vs. paint issue too. And not just for the small bits like the headlight rings but for body grfx and stripes too. I come from the hot rodding world (my other car is a 62 Mercury Meteor gasser) and those folks would never put a sticker on where you could paint it.

How many people paint stripes, and/or the chrome surrounds vs. vinyl wrapping the parts? Just curious...

 

Mine were painted at a local body shop, three stage etc.

No vinyl!

 

I am 100% on-board with vinyl graphics, and I think the parts can be wrapped in vinyl as well with good results. I was just saying we didn't do that with this car.

 

My headlight rings, grill surrounds and tail light trims are all painted. I did it myself becuase I get bored and I'm a cheap bastard! They look great, but you will get rock chips up front, I fix those with touch up paint from the Mini parts deparment. I need to have a body shop do mine at some point. Adam what did you end up paying to have your done, if you don't mind me asking.

 

I paid in a lump sum. My car came with a white roof that it wasn't supposed too, so I did the roof, headlamps, taillamps, grille shell, gas cap etc. I think the total for everything was roughly $600. I can go check. I don't know what the small bits would have been on their own.

Thanks!

 

How's it going man, quick question, how did you remove the headlight washers to paint them?

 

Look closer at the pic, it doesn't have headlight washers. It has the halogen headlights.

 

I did the ones on mine. It was pretty easy. You have to pull the whole wash assembly out, I had to have my husband hold the washer stem out while I took them off. Be careful, or you can easily snap the clips. They are held in with 2 small posts that go into holes on the washer cover. Just gently pry up and they will come right off. Although they were definitely easier to put back on then take off!

DSCN3178 by MrsFalk, on Flickr