How to Safari/Astro Van Headlamps/Grill Restoration

what's going on bad enthusiasts today we're going to restore the front end of this 1997 gmc safari we're going to polish these headlights and we're going to replace the other covers we're also going to repaint this grill black and clear coat it as you can tell these lights are pretty sorry looking so i'm going to put in some leds safari and astro vans either use composite headlamps or sealed beam headlamps here we have composite headlamps the sealed beams look like this these are super easy to work with to remove this headlamp take out the 10 millimeter on this side and then you have three 10 millimeters to loosen up and that's all there is to it to disconnect the connectors you either unclip or twist off to get the bottom parking light off loosen up two phillips heads now the replacement pair for these it's about 32 bucks and the replacement pair for the corner lights is about 12 bucks to get the grill off we have four seven millimeter bolts and right there this magnetic tool really helps and there you have it the headlamps are still in good condition so all we're going to do is polish them up first we clean them up with super clean distilled five to one and then using the d.a headlight restorer do a couple passes what you're looking at here is the before and the after the before is kind of hazy and the after somewhat of an improvement you can see the haze there's still some rock pits which could have came out with some sanding but i think this looks good already the grill has been washed with dish soap sanded with 320 were masked we're ready to go i could tell that this grill was chrome the original finish was beautiful so original owner if you're watching this man why you got to do that now we get rid of this cover by popping out the push pin with push pin pliers and then it just slides off now ready to paint don't forget your ppe now i was going to go with chrome or gloss black and i made a test piece with gloss black and chrome and the chrome didn't amaze me that much so i'll just stick with the glass black i was looking for the gmoe in a spray can but all the local auto parts stores in my area were out of it so we're going to try this out the hygrometer reads 90 degrees with 30 humidity kind of in the danger zone for painting i did three light coats every 30 minutes and ended up with a decent result now we're going to finish the project by clear coating everything clear coat the headlamps clear coat the grill one can should be enough now when you're messing around with this clear coat you must wear gloves tyvek sue and a respirator it's a must it's been 24 hours and the clear coat has fully cured now this can started spitting so it left a bunch of inconsistencies which you can see in person but in camera they look pretty good next i polish the headlamps and the grill with a d.a and a yellow rupes pad coupled with sonax perfect finish top it all off i use ethos pro ceramic wax to give it a final coating now these letters they were covered in paint so using some lacquer thinner and a brush i was able to make the chrome really stand out when you put your headlamps back together make sure you put in this one as you can see i upgraded to leds skull park 9006 hb4s to swap them you basically pull up on that little tab with the flat head and then twist off and just insert in the new led simple as that the pair was about 35 on amazon and it made a huge difference and here's our final result for less than 100 bucks i give this van a nice facelift all i got to do next is paint that bumper and paint that hood so till next time have a good day you guys

Channel: OldSchoolNoe

Views: 9,773

Keywords: headlamp restoration, Safari Van, Astro Van, Safari van LED, Astro Van LED, how to change headlamps, how to change headlights, OldSchoolNoe

Id: oZOsJ1TtBg8

Length: 5min 51sec (351 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 25 2021