Painting Headlight Housing (aka Joey Mod)
 

I have a buddy who has 2002 wrx and we painted the inside of his housings and it looked awesome just wondering if anyone else has done this but to a mini

yes....But how to do it has been a mystery. A lot of people know of the tactic of heating an oven up to 200 degrees and putting the headlight in for like 15 minutes (thats what most subaru owners do i believe), but a long long time ago one of the original members here reported having problems with using the oven technique. Something about clips still retaining the glass, not just the sealant. But obviously it is possible as seen below. The pictures come from a japanese tuner company who has done this mod a lot of times, and has even gone as far as adding angel eyes (like the BMWs have). So they obviously know how to do it, but weren't responding to my emails.



http://www.hosokawa.co.jp/bond-mini/...ages/162_9.jpg

http://www.hosokawa.co.jp/bond-garag...ini_fsp_01.jpg

http://www.hosokawa.co.jp/bond-mini/.../coopers07.jpg http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/bondga...f/7fcc0041.JPG

I'm hoping to get my painted tails back together and installed soon. Pics to follow. I love the look of painting the headlights! Hella offers replacement units overseas for many BMW and VW products that are painted matte so the lights look blacked out when they are turned off. I'd love to try this w/ my headlights but the wife would kill me if she caught me disassembling them and then I broke something. I personally won't be trying this until replacements come down in price or start selling lower on ebay. If someone else try's let us see how it turns out.:thumbsup:

One more note, Clearcorners.com offers this service for several cars including the G35's but not the MINI yet. Not enough interest and no volunteers to be first available according to customer support. At $800 a set for LED tails it might be awhile before they get around to more MINI parts. :cry:

I've been obsessing about painting mine satin black so I look forward anymore DIY info on this subject:smile:

You know. I have a spare headlight from an 05 MC, non Xenon, Driver side. If anyone wants to tinker with the custom coloring idea. (Its listed in the marketplace).

I'm gonna finally just do it. I like the new 05 headlights better anyways...so i will try it with my old ones. I just need to get the guts up enough to do it :lol: :smile:

You have a pair of older style? Are they Xenon? If so, let me try it:smile: My thoughts was rather than subjecting the lamps to the oven, use an Xacto blade the cut the sealant then remove the residue afterwards and reseal with RTV after painting.

Looks GREAT on the orange car... Pepper white - not so much.

That was my thought too. I dont have an extra set of headlights....but im thinking about buying new 05 ones and then trying them on the older style that came with my car.

I want to do satin black too i think. Although i always thought that adding a black tint to the chrome (in order to achieve a black chrome look) would look cool on some cars. There is always that carbon fiber overlay that i showed you in those headlights :wink:

On the subie boards they have a great reccomendation for the sealant. They say you can get it at home depot and Ace hardware, and apparently its the same stuff subaru uses on their OEM headlights. I dont think that removing the sealant is the problem. The problem might just be the intricate clamps and attachments that MINI uses. They tend to require you to pull in different directions and confusing things like that :lol: We shall have to see :razz:

if you cant tell this topic has been of interest to me for quite a while. Here are the two subaru threads i was talking about

One is just about getting the thing open with some nice pics. They are just removing reflectors and not painting.
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=384488

And here is their painting thread....the pics are towards the bottom.
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=749614

And the famous "joey mod" from the dub community. this one is of interest because they suggest a heat gun, which is much less scary than throwing them in a heated oven. Pictures arent anything special unforunately.
http://www.vwenthusiast.com/?pg=joey_mod

one big concern of mine is the fact that my lights are xenon and that the fact of the auto leveling system is really scary

we did just throw my friends in the oven and they seperated like butter (wrx)

The orange looks siiiick and it would on my hyper blue too!!

Actually, I would MUCH more afraid of using a heat gun as the temperature of it could easily get well over the suggested 200F in the oven method. Plus, you could strain the plastic by heating it unevenly with the gun. If you think about it, 200F isn't really that hot and except for the sealant they use which is what you are trying to melt, nothing in the assembly should have any problems with that kind of temperature. I watched the hubby and his friends do this to WRX's, EVO's and an M Roadster (they were putting angel eyes on it) and as anxious as I was about the first one they did, they didn't have any problems with it and their headlights and tail lights look great! :thumbsup:

I did this to my Kia Sorento. It took longer to scrap the old sealent off than anything else. It was pretty simple, I only heated the oven to 170 degrees F. I had though about doing it to the MINI but I bought a practice Light for the Sorento for $35 shipped. I doubt I could get one for the MINI that cheap.

in agreement :sad:

I really like the look of this, I think it would look sweet with my electric blue-- if someone figures it out let me know!!

If anyone has a cheap or free Light I will try, I shouldnt be hard. Just need the right paint to match the paint of the car.

please give a website or link to this japanese tuner that did the orange lights. I am dying to see more pics of this car.

thanks!!

hehe its the free light thats hard to get :wink: . I have been trying to find a cheap version for a while now, and then i will do it :smile:

i was just looking at the pic of the dissasembled headlight and it looks very similiar to my 05 xenons as far as how they are put together any insight in to this. I know thats what this thread is all about but any insight will be helpful as i will probably try to do this next week

I would call $75 + actually Shipping cheap compared to the $180 new price...:razz:

PM sent :thumbsup:

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/bondga...f/7fcc0041.JPG

first i will explain what each thing is...or atleast a quick explanation. From left to right. The black boxes are for the xenons, the bigger one being the ballast. To the right of that is the chrome housing, its the reflector housing that projects the light outwards (this part wouldnt be painted, it needs to stay reflective). the black plastic part is the backing plate of the entire assembly, you can see it on the inside of your hood. Underneath that is the chrome housing (the part you would paint) still connected to the outer lense. And lastly on the right end side is the chrome surround which goes on top of the lense via clips which is easily removable(and can be purchased separately.

Now....using those names, i will explain how things go together (as far as i know).

-The reflector housings plug into the back of the chrome housing (the bulbs go into the reflector housings).

-The chrome housing is sealed to the clear lense via a liquid sealant. The sealant is the part that you have to heat up in order to remove. There are some people who have stated that there are clips also associated with this connection.

-This combo of reflectors,chrome housing, and lense are all placed into the black plastic backing. By what means, i dont know. I wish it was just screws, but i highly doubt it. It almost looks like it was cut off in that pic....but i dont know :sly: :confused:

-The ballast and igniter for the xenons then attach to the black plastic backing plate on the outside.

-The chrome surround clips onto the lense hiding the connecting points for all the other parts.

-The entire unit is held on the car via some screws (nothing hard interms of this removal

This is discussing the 02-04 xenon housing pictured above. A lot of the connection methods are unkown. I am using knowledge of other car headlights and various pictures i have seen to SPECULATE about some of the above information. I may be wrong.

more pics to entice people.....check out the carbon fiber in the first pic :thumbsup:

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/ninja5...3/d3976074.JPG

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/ninja5...7/1730d1f3.jpg

So sexy. I bet HB would look sweet like that.

wow I just drooled on my keyboard

-Josh

man, i wana try it with mine now.....

i dont know what color i want tho, painting them DS doesnt seem like much of a jump from chrome, lol :lol:

You could paint them white to match the roof, mirror caps, and bonnet stripes.

that seems like it would be quite a jump....

i would have to paint my grille white then too, lol :roll: :lol:

Just giving you options. I am thinking about painting mine black. If I ever get the nerve to take them apart.

how about the carbonfibre? How do I do it?

Well assuming you can get them apart the steps would be as follows.

rough up the chrome with some sandpaper. Make sure its rather textured. Apply a thin layer of your choice of resin. Lay down a layer of carbon fiber fabric on the area and make sure its absolutely flat and tight. Brush on a bit more resin, Allow to cure. Sand with finer and finer grit sandpaper. Cover in some sort of UV protectant (pro's differ on choice here). Trim all the edges so they are the same as the actual housing. Admire your work.

That is a very abridged version of the process. And most people are unable to make a successful overlay on their first attempt. You can have lots of problems between bubbles, discoloration, and uneven surfaces...all dependent on the above processes. I would like anyone attempting to do this to do way more reading. I'm just putting this out there to give a little glimpse into the process.

And if you did the inlay with CF, you'd have to do the chrome surrounds with CF too... right? :wink:

haha yes its fully necessary then

Hmmm... we have an extra '03 Xenon headlight (w/ broken lens from a re-tread) in the attic... this looks like a good Winter project.

:thumbsup:

Yes it is :thumbsup:

I ask that anyone who does this please take pictures for the rest of the community. This will be one of my many winter projects this year (and maybe some academic work will be done too :lol: :roll: ). I will take comprehensive notes and write up a how-to....even if it doesnt work as expected i will let you guys now :lol: . I have some other secret plans for the headlight as well :wink:

I can't believe that I'm even considering doing this!!!!