Painted Headlights

Now I'm sure you're all familiar with the posts on Nasioc...

How To Clear MY04+ Headlights - photo instructions

How to clear 06 headlights & paint.

...but I thought I'd do a small write-up on my experience.

I decided to do this after reading the above MY04 thread and seeing the results on Cohen's (aka lil Jew; aka wagunz_pwn) car. I wanted to do it to remove the amber portions and make it black. Below are the photo results.

Notes:

1. I found that 12min@220deg is better than in the orig writeup.
2. Using extra sealant when you're done is recommended.
3. Don't get glue on you sheet pan, it's impossible to remove

Part 1 - Black with silver "handpainted" ring

I removed the lights, and managed to break a tab in the process. This tab was eventually glued back together with crazyglue. After the shrouds were dried I got the crazy idea to "hand paint" them with a "highlight" ring. Now this sounded good at the time, but I should've taped it...but didn't. The pics below won't show it, but my line isn't exactly straight. However, if you were to stand about 6' back it looked awesome on the car. Ask wagunz_pwn or popsmear...they'll agree that if you got any closer than that it looked like s4!+!!!

Final product (you can slightly see the rough line here):



On the Car:







The pics make it look pretty good, and I really liked the look...from a distance. Eventually (like 3-4 weeks later) I got fed up with it and decided that I'd redo them....

Part 2 - Color matched to center grill & 9-2X grille/headlight blackout

So by the time I'd decided to redo mine the lady (aka Sarah, aka supastar84) had researched and wanted to do the one's on the 9-2X as well.

The above thread for the MY06-07 helped a little bit, but not enough. To remove the lights on the Saab 9-2X the whole bumper has to come off. We found this out the hard way, as I thought it would be as simple as mine. Regardless we did her lights the same way and painted the shroud in a semi-gloss black. The chrome grill pieces also were painted at this time.

Final Product:








As stated above I also re-did mine at this time. I managed to find a paint that was very close to the center trim piece. At this time I removed the wire portion of the grille as well. The lights got several coats to have it all blended carefully. I may still redo them in the future to ensure the coats are smooth, and tastefully add a trim ring to the shroud. I'm still undecided on that part.

Final Product:







Album Links:

Part 1

Part 2

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I'd recommend it. I think it looks 100x better.

It looked 10x better after we got the roof rails from ScoobyMike...now with no chrome...more so....and the custom hood decal.

 

Cars look good..

 

I just did this with to my wagon, but keep not posting photos because the thing's so freaking dirty. Yours looks great. And I especially love the black on the Saabaru.

 

Thanks!! It was def. worth the work to drop the bumper and pull those lights out.

You should post pics...who cares if it is dirty. Now I have to decided if I should do anything to the tails...ScoobyMike, IIRC your's are tinted right?

I had to do it again the week after when I was changing the turn signal bulb....



...the damn thing fell out of the housing as I was pulling it out. I tried to retrieve it with tape and a hanger, but eventually had to drop the bumper and pull the light. After that gravity did the rest.