How To Replace The Headlight Lens & Paint The Housing On Any Car Featuring An E55 AMG Wagon.

in today's episode of legit streetcars I'm going to show you how to modify your headlights so they look like this now you can perform this modification to practically any car in existence but I'll be using my 2005 in 55 AMG station wagon to demonstrate and if you're wondering why it's missing almost all of its body panels I'll leave that video linked down below painting the inside headlamp housing is rewarding and inexpensive and if done properly it can look very factory and correct as many cars come new with black or body coloured headlamp housings this can all be done for as little as twenty dollars in material and I'll be showing you how to ceramic coat the outside lens and the inside trim of the headlights for even better results if you guys are interested in learning how to ceramic coat every surface of a car in just four minutes I'll leave that easy-to-follow instructional video link down below in the video description box and there'll be coupon codes and product links to everything you guys see here today okay the first step in the job is removing the headlamps so here we go in some cases but not all the front bumper needs to be removed or lowered to remove the headlamp assembly on the 211 chassis e-class you do need to remove the front bumper and after you've unplugged all the connectors in the back look for bolts or clips that hold the assembly in place on this car it's two bolts on top one on the bottom and then just one screw for the washer nozzle and the light lifts right out next we're building an oven you're gonna need to heat the housing to remove the lens and even though you can use the oven in your house building your own is cheap and easy and it'll keep your significant other much happier trust me I found a box in the alley traced out a hole punched that hole out and installed the end of my heat gun I stuck a thermometer in the top and bam you have a headlamp oven and you're still married before we start baking you need to disassemble some things on the headlight easy to remove rubber parts and caps should be removed and I like to remove all the bulbs as well including the headlight bulb if you have xenon lights it's easy to remove the igniter or the control modules and on this car it's just a few screws then remove any clips that hold on the and you're pretty much done now realistically the entire headlamp assembly is designed to withstand some pretty high temperatures think of the Arizona desert in full sunlight but because it takes a few minutes remove as much as you can including the exterior rubber seal around the lens okay now it's oven time stick the headlamp in the box and unless the box is about double this size use a divider so the direct heat from the heat gun doesn't melt anything don't worry you really have to mess this up to damage the headlight just don't point the gun right at it and you're fine also be smart with using a heat gun and a cardboard box I've done this many times and I never had anything even come close to catching fire but just don't turn the gun on and leave the room this is a common practice for heating headlights and it's safe when used with common sense I like to keep the temperature right at about a hundred and eighty to 200 degrees for 15 minutes and after that just turn your heat gun off and take it out now gloves are always a good idea but if you're super tough like me you can just rip the lens off with your bare hands and call it a day if you've heated up the factory black butyl sealant enough they come apart easily and this is what you're left with we want to remove the chrome housings and I started with the larger one it's held in by sealant and then just one torque screw at the bottom don't forget that one after that's removed it lifts right out I don't want to paint this small chrome trim around the top bulb so I used to pick to push in the tabs and out chicane the smaller chrome housing requires you to remove two Torx screws and then gently use a flat blade screwdriver to release the inner clips with any car this part of the job requires patience and be gentle this plastic can be brittle so you just don't want to start ripping and tearing next we get straight into paint prep you want to sand the surface before painting and many use a 400 to 800 grit sandpaper for this I like to use a heavy duty scotch brite pad because it contours the housing better and you're really able to scuff the entire surface after a few minutes your surface will look something like this and then just wipe it clean with a mix of rubbing alcohol and water to remove any oils lay your part down and it's time to prime make sure you're using a primer that's specifically made for plastic and like I said I'll leave you all the links to everything down below your first coat of primer should just be a light dusting and after a couple of minutes lay down another coat it's always best to put down multiple light coats rather than one heavy coat so you don't get any runs and after you're done let the primer dry for about an hour or whatever the instructions on the back of the can say to do we have paint next and again make sure this is made to adhere well to plastic I'm using a gloss black here but there are many different shades available this goes on just like the primer in that were spraying multiple light coats and I normally do two coats of the primer and three coats of the color and on the last coat of color I get a little bit closer to the housing but not too close as you don't want to create those runs and remember wear a mask it might smell kind of good but paint is really nasty next we're spraying the clear coat and this can be done just a few minutes after your last coat of color but again follow the instructions on the can because different paints suggest different drying times I normally wait roughly 5 minutes after the last coat of color to begin with the clear put down a light coat of clear first and then you can get a little bit closer for what's called your wet coat and also make sure that your clear coat blocks UV light so your paint doesn't fade over time after about an hour or so of air drying I like to bake these at about 150 for 45 minutes in the oven and then I let them sit overnight before reinstalling them into the headlamp assembly if you guys have a nice garage floor definitely cover it better than I did I'm getting an epoxy coating put on this year so I really don't care but here is our project let's go over a couple of options first of all this is an excellent time to replace your headlamp lenses minor in decent condition but for this particular car there are only about $60 and new so I've opted to replace them if you are going to replace the headlamp lenses don't forget to transfer any trim from the old one so in this case we just have a chrome ring and it sits in here and it's held in with two screws very easy to take out now speaking of chrome trim I've noticed that a lot of factory cars that have painted headlamp housings leave some chrome accents I think that looks really clean and generally I'm a fan of chrome accents so I'm gonna do the same I'm gonna leave it this one chrome I'm gonna leave it this little guy Chrome and we're gonna leave the ring around the projector chrome as well and speaking of the projector these can wear out I'll kind of start to flake on the inside and it'll drastically reduce your light output mine are in excellent condition so I'm gonna leave them and then another option at this point if you have xenon headlights is to replace the bulbs these do wear out so if you have discoloration from side to side may be a good time to do that something else if you guys don't have a factory projector if you have a normal halogen bulb with no projector it's not a good idea to paint this all black because that chrome around that headlamp bulb is actually what projects the light out in this case it's all concentrated right there in our little projector bulb so we don't really have to worry about that so you can do a retrofit if you have an old-school halogen style headlamp with no projector and those can really improve the lighting output of any car so anyway that's where we're at I'm gonna start putting it all back together and we're almost done oh and a big warning to you guys if you're not gonna paint this chrome trim around the projector be very careful in how you clean it on some cars even just simple water on a microfiber will discolor the chrome and remove it in some cases if you don't believe me or if you want to just try cleaning it anyway just try the very bottom first so these really shouldn't be dirty at all I actually just use a dry microfiber just to get the dust off clean up the projector and call it a day okay now it's the fun part and putting everything back together just requires you to work in the reverse order so reinstall your little chrome ring and don't forget that one screw that holds the larger housing in then the smaller housing just snaps back in and you reinstall the two other screws I like to ceramic coat everything because it's cheap and easy and adds even more UV protection and doing this is just a matter of wiping it on waiting a minute and then wiping it off I use armor shield 9 buy a belong King and just watch the four minute video link down below for all the details and a twenty five dollar off coupon code because we have our Easy Bake Oven I like to bake these for about an hour at 150 degrees and this cures the ceramic coating and gets the factory butyl sealant nice and flexible in preparation for our lenses now especially if you're replacing your lenses you need to add more of this black butyl sealant it's just a few bucks and it comes all rolled up and easy to apply just push it into the groove of the headlamp assembly and make sure you go all the way around it's also best to buy two of these so you don't run out with that done just make sure you've cleaned the inside of the lens really well and push it right back on you're gonna feel resistance since the new butyl isn't soft yet but don't worry we have our super professional wolf oven waiting now use some heavy duty clamps to hold pressure on the lens and you should have some weird contraption that looks like this when you're done stick it in the oven and set it to bake for about 200 degrees for roughly 15 minutes the clamps are gonna do all the work for you and push the lens firmly into the headlight groove as all of the butyl warms up and melts together you know you're good when your little lens Clips fit back nicely and after you remove it this will make a water and air tight seal so you don't run into headlight condensation issues later from here it's all gravy I like to buff out the lens whether they're new or old and then I apply my ceramic coating these external rubber seals always look nasty but here it is after a cleaning and applying the ceramic coating which does a great job of restoring black plastic after you've reinstalled your bulbs covers and modules you're ready to reinstall everything back on your car or truck and here is our final result so we went from this to this and I think these headlights look absolutely fantastic I love the gloss black painted housings and I'm so glad that I left some of the chrome trim accents alone because I really think that sets it off this car will have some chrome trim still left on it like the badges and whatnot so this kind of just brings it all together and with the new lenses everything ceramic coated inside and out these are crystal clear so I can't wait to get all of the freshly painted body panels back on the e55 wagon we're gonna ceramic coat the entire car paint correction the whole nine yards next up is cleaning up the engine so I'm actually gonna remove these before we start spraying a bunch of stuff all over the place but with a clean engine all the panels put back on this thing gleaming in the Sun these are gonna look so good take a look at they're absolutely perfect and I'm going to end this with some sweet pictures of my 2003 e55 AMG I did the exact same headlight mod to that car same lenses same exact process and that was over two years ago and they still look brand spanking new so this gives you an idea of what this modification looks like on a completed car and I think you'll agree with me that it looks pretty good so I hope this video really helped you out I hope it gives you the confidence to tackle this job at home and if you're not replacing your lenses which is not 100% needed if they're in good condition expect to only spend about twenty dollars in material so with that being said if you enjoyed the video let me know in the comments section hit the like button subscribe share the video with your friends and most importantly have a fantastic day I'll catch all of you in the next video [Music]

Channel: LegitStreetCars

Views: 215,609

Keywords: painting headlights, painting headlight housing, how to replace headlight lens, best headlight mods, budget car mods, ceramic coating, ceramic coating headlights, avalon king armor shield ix review, e55 amg wagon, legitstreetcars e55, amg wagon, mercedes wagon, how to paint headlights, cheap car mods, color matched headlights, xenon headlights, led headlights, amazon affiliate, how to clean headlights, diy headlight painting, clean headlight lens, chrisfix, headlights

Id: FQonBniudjw

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Sat May 02 2020