Blacked Out my Headlights

[i3oricua]

Well, this weekend/week I decided to change all my bulbs out and the DRL's had be changed from the inside of the headlight housing. So since I was opening them up I decided to try and black the interior of the housing out. I really just painted two parts of each headlight which worked out really well once I had all the tools I needed. First you have to follow the Clear Corner Mod tutorial to get the headlights apart. When you have them apart you'll need a very hard to find (at least for me it was for some reason):

1. T8 - Torx screwdriver or socket
2. T40 - Torx screwdriver or socket ( I could be wrong about this size, the T8 I'm sure of.)
3. Some black spray of your choice
4. Time

From the headlight housing you'll remove (2) two T40 (or whatever size they are screws and that piece slides out:


This one is recessed a little bit


Then you'll remove the (3) three T8 screws from the lens and that part will slide out



Then you paint, I chose this spray to use which worked out fine.


Just remember this isn't hairspray so short quick sprays to keep it even and from blotting up should help. Also, if you do end up with blotted spots you can sand down with high grit sand paper and respray.




Finished results:







Any spots you see on the finished result is the lens being dirty or a reflection. It all came out really clean. I thought about going with a bright red but would have been hard to match my red so I just kept the blacked out theme going.

I hope this helps someone because I continued asking around how some people did it and no one gave me a response so I took a chance and tried it on my own. Good luck to the next person.

[flath12]

wow man that looks sick, didn't think it was that easy.. looks like the next project for me!

[pyro]

where were you when i had my HIDs apart? lol
lookin good man, definately a good mod.

[capnpyro]

Looks great on your car, nice work!

[jerrycaudi]

looks great

[quattshot]

Very nice.
Good work.

[INTEGRATION]

nice, i like the finished product. Originally I was against blacking out my headlights but that might change now lol.

[A4TuNeD]

wow man that looks sick, didn't think it was that easy.. looks like the next project for me!

Its not as easy as it looks unless you are really familiar with removing the bumper. When I did it I had to stop because I was too afraid to put the lights in the oven lol. But we tested it on my friends RSX-S first and it went extremely well even though it is 10000000 times easier to remove the headlights on his car.

[teknikk7]

Sick. I would have done this but my car is black.

[Postman]

Damn...that looks fantastic!

[Tgr_Clw]

Wow, I really, really, really like the end result.

That's saying a lot btw as I'm not the biggest fan of the B7 front end.

[SilverB7FL]

looks really good!

[kdawgg]

looks really nice!!

[Phrost]

Looks very nice! Also, I just wanted to tell anyone that is afraid to put their headlight housing into the oven...

You don't have to if you're afraid to. It is 100% safe if you follow the directions, but I joey mod'd my VW Golf headlights and pried off the lens just by heating with a blow dryer. An oven is much easier, but 10 minutes with a blow dryer on HOT and prying with a small flathead will get the lens off also.

[KingQuattroB7]

Looks great btw....you got me thinking of doing the same, well that and the orange corners are just getting uglier by the minute. ;]

[Slo.Mo.Shun.]

Looks good

[NKI 337]

any pics from further away??? more of a frontal view??

[toaster]

Wow, I really, really, really like the end result.

That's saying a lot btw as I'm not the biggest fan of the B7 front end.

i concur.

looks sharp.

nice work - a lot of people are going to be asking you about this and trying it now.

i wonder how it would look if you ditched the amber signals and got a blackout grille...

[ZSki]

i like the emo b7 look! lol jk, the blackened housing looks awesome, gj!

[muffinman]

Looks SICK.. i might have to do this when i do my xenon retrofit...

[matttl16]

i wonder how it would look if you ditched the amber signals and got a blackout grille...

i have blue lights as the turnsignals i think it looks awsome ill try to post a pic later b/c photobucket isnt working right now

[A4B7GA]

Do you think the paint will bubble or peel from the heat of the lights?

[toaster]

i have blue lights as the turnsignals i think it looks awsome ill try to post a pic later b/c photobucket isnt working right now

do you have the same kind of black headlights and black grille?

[D0lphinGrey]

Good work! Wish I had done this when I was doing the clear corner mod last weekend. Too late now.

[Ken@German]

Nice work! I must have dust inside my lights because they are nowhere near as clear as yours.

[Phrost]

Do you think the paint will bubble or peel from the heat of the lights?

It won't. HID's (xenon) are much cooler than a conventional filament-style bulb too. I wouldn't worry about the paint fading/cracking/bubbling at all.

I had the entire housing done on my Mk4 Golf for a good couple years, it was fine.

Glad cling wrap because Mk4 chrome was cheap and peeled off with painters tape


I painted freakin everything


Done and installed




Didn't mean to thread jack in any way, I'm just trying to tell everyone how easy this is and there is nothing to worry about once it's done. Happy modding

[TDI]

nice mod!!!!!

does it work with normal halogeen lamps also?
They produce more heat you know
how about making the lamps back waterproof???????

[GarbatyA4]

looks great... would you consider that matte black paint the same as flat black?

im doing the same thing to my b6... just wondering... did you clear coat as well? or no need too?

[grizzles]

Looks good, nice to see some detailed pics on a halogen housing, I need to man up and do mine now. Did you put some silicone on the housing to prevent them fogging up?

[AvantNoir]

Looks awesome! I've been planning on doing this same mod from day one of getting my Avant. I might attempt it in the next couple of weeks.

[i3oricua]

Thanks for all the compliments. I didn't use high temp paint, I meant to, I even thought that's what I picked up but the kids were running around messing with stuff so I didn't notice what I had used until after I had sprayed them. If it does bubble up then I'll take them apart again, sand them down and respray with high temp. I didn't clear coat, not saying you can't, but it was more of a flat black than a matte. I couldn't decide what black to go with so I just stuck with flat so I could change it if I wanted to later. I've taken the headlight housing apart quite a few times now because of that stupid T8 torx screw - I finally got it right so that's when I finally sprayed it all down. Everything can be broken down further if you want to spray everything like Phrost did, but there are some really hard to reach screws in there so I'll leave that to someone else. I found it worked out best for me with the oven at 200F for about 6-7 minutes, especially for the reassembly. Then I took the back side of a screw driver and ran it around the seam of the housing where the glue is to push it together and spread the paste/silicone back out. ALL the bulbs are the Hoen bulbs, low beams, high beams, fogs, corners, city lights (which the city's BTW if you order from Hoen HAVE to be installed by removing the lens of the headlight assembly.)

If anyone has anyone questions feel free to ask, I'll try to answer them if I can.

[Phrost]

Good info! There is enough silicone the housing, so nobody needs to buy more if they do this mod. Just make sure to heat it up again slightly, so it gets all gooey and makes a good seal.

As far as color, it's whatever your preference is. My A4 is black so I'll be doing gloss black with clear coat, but you could just do flat black with no clear depending on what finish you want.

[HeymyA4]

looks Awesome!

[QuaTTrings]

Looks great!

[matttl16]

ya i have the same lights but photobucket wont allow me to upload pics... but if you go look on photopucket my account is http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n223/matttl16/

[Allan T]

Looking hot

[grizzles]

(which the city's BTW if you order from Hoen HAVE to be installed by removing the lens of the headlight assembly.)

Thanks for all the info but you don't have to remove the assembly to install Hoen Citylights, I did it on mine just fine. You might mean the turn signal bulbs.....

[wtrsxn]

looks good

[Slo.Mo.Shun.]

More pics please

[i3oricua]

Thanks for all the info but you don't have to remove the assembly to install Hoen Citylights, I did it on mine just fine. You might mean the turn signal bulbs.....

The turn signal bulbs were easy to after I got the headlight assembly off, but the city lights (the little ones in the top middle of the housing would not go in from the back. Maybe I had a pair that was shaped different but I could not squeeze them through the opening to put them in.

HID:
I'll get more pictures up when there's some daylight out which will be tomorrow. Its already darkened up here.