Need some input on painting headlights jdm. I know I just have to remove the amber piece on the side and paint the housing flat black but how do I paint the amber part on the bottom? Do I have to paint the housing orange and it will just reflect as orange or do I actually have to paint the cover where the amber goes?

 

Looking at pictures of the lights it seems to be the glass that is painted and the chrome housing is left alone or maybe a light coat on it. It just seems to reflective to have been painted if you look at a good picture of it. GL

 

how am i going to get paint to stick to that surface. I have a feeling it will have a hard time sticking to it. Would sanding it help?

 

I guess you could hit it with some sandpaper. Try going to like Michaels art store or whatever you have there and pick up either some Krylon amber paint(suposed to be good), or ask for some stained glass window paint. At least thats what another site recommended.

 

Scuffing up the surface then fully cleaning it with rubbing alcohol will go a long way to help the paint stick.

 

use tamiya orange ts-73. they can be found in hobby shops. you don't need to scuff the lense on the headlight. mask really well and paint alot of light coats. the paint will run and pool w/ heavy coats. if you mess up, you can use nail polish remover and a q-tip or cotton ball.

i painted both headlight lense and reflector. sorry, no pics.

the real jdm headlights actually have an amber lense on the lower part. like the usdm amber piece on parking light.

good luck.

 

yes i have the tamiya paint. I tried painting it with a lot of light coats but the first coat when it dried up, it looked like it was fogged up and every coat after that didnt do anything. The only way I got it to look sort of orange was by rubbing it off and then heavily spraying it which lead to dripping and pooling. I might try scuffing surface up a little.

 

does Evodave not paint headlights and tail lights anymore??? j/w havent heard much about him in a while....

 

^^ i think he does

 

yeah, you'll get pooling/drips on that first coat. too much = drips/pools. too little = foggy/haze.

here's some cell phone pics. i have a little drips/pooling, too.

 

not bad at all

 

Painting looks alright.

 

Did you paint that on the outside or the inside? Any reason why you didnt black out the housing to complete the JDM look or was it just preference?

 

i painted the inside of the lense and the chrome reflector. yeah, it's not perfect but it's fine w/ me. it's my spare set of headlights.

i bought the headlights used already blacked out. it looks like the person who blacked them out used a gloss clear coat and a metallic dark grey so it's not dark. i just decided to try out the amber part for the heck of it.

 

Oh gotcha. Looking at the first picture its hard to tell that the housing has been darkened but now that you mention it I can kinda see it. I am sure it looks much different in person but either way I still think they look good! Two sets of headlights huh? What for?