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HOW-TO: Colormatched headlamp interior

32K views 109 replies 52 participants last post by  West  
#1 · (Edited)
As promised here is the how-to for painting the interior of your headlamps

After repeating this process for this write-up I have come to realize that some headlamps may be better sealed than others and so I must add the following:

WARNING!!! Do this how-to at your own risk! I do not give any guarantee that you will be successful at performing this procedure, nor am I responsible for:
1. Headlamp breakage
2. Misshapen (ugly) headlamp bucket due to necessary prying for separation
3. Water leakage due to improper sealing
4. Burned hands (or searing of skin to metal bobbin's)
5. Cuts to fingers, hands, arms, stomach or any other body part
6. Vulgarities near or around sensitive ears:rant:

To remove the nose from the bike use the following:
http://www.triumph675.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8995

The headlamp is attached to the nose by four (4) MM bolts

Tools needed:
1. Razor blade, preferably a razor knife
2. Small flathead screwdriver
3. #2 Phillips-head screwdriver
4. Small dikes or snips
5. 10mm socket
6. 6mm socket
7. Waterproof sealant (silicone caulk, etc...)
8. Household oven
OPTIONAL:
Gloves for sensitive hands:pacifier:
Heat gun
Pliers

After removing the headlamp assymbly from the nose all covers and bulbs MUST be removed. Covers are removed with a phillips-head screwdriver, marker bulbs simply pull out, the low-beam is held on by retainer, the high-beam twists off.

Once holding the empty housing the best way to start is by removing the excess sealant (rubbery surface) from the seam of the housing, this can be done by rubbing or scraping with finger or razor.

After excess is removed you have to make a decision (A) pry the little 'clips' around the headlamp or (B) snip them off with dikes. I chose option B
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After getting the clips out of the way take a razor knife and cut along the seam between the housing and the lens until you feel you have adequately weakened the seal between the two pieces.
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Pre-heat you oven to 275*F (135*C), place oven rack at highest setting that allows your headlamp to fit. Place housing on larger flat surface (baking sheet, aluminum boiling pan, large flat rock, whatever):whistle:
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Once pre-heated place housing into oven for approximately 7 minutes (higher altitudes may need to add a minute). During this time get something to take a very hot surface out of the oven, put on gloves (if you want), get tools ready. DO NOT open your oven prematurely. As with any other premature action you will be disappointed.:noclue: Opening the oven will loose about 50*F (10*C), this is not good.

After the needed time has expired remove headlamp from oven (leave oven on just in case) and begin the following steps as quickly as possible.

Start by inserting a small flathead screwdriver into the seam at the corner of the housing and begin working the screwdriver along the seem, gently prying the two pieces apart. Once there is an adequate opening you can try to pull the to halves apart with you hands (this will take a good amount of force and even more caution)
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Additional cutting of sealant may be required to allow separation. If at any point the housing cools do not hesitate to re-insert into the oven for 2-3min to maintain workability.

Hopefully you will now have two (2) halves

To remove the plastics from inside the lens housing remove the six (6) phillips-head screws from each side.
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Pay close attention to how the two pieces attach at this screw.
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To remove the surround from the projector lens you need to first remove the projectors themselves. Start by marking the adjustment screws so that you can easily align projectors upon reassembly. Then remove the projectors by backing the three (3) aligning screws out with a 10mm socket.
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WOO HOO more pieces!:girlfaint:
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The projector surround is held to the assembly by four (4) phillipshead screws and 6mm bolts
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Make sure not to loose the metal spacers as you remove the mounting plate.
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Now for the fun part...painting! Prep the plastics and metal surround the standard way and apply multiple light coats of paint.
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To assemble just reverse the above processes
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Once the lens and bucket housings have been reassembled, align the lens portion into the groove of the bucket portion and press together.

If you managed to warp the groove on the bucket portion you will need to remake the groove. The best way to do this is by heating the bucket groove with a heat gun and reforming with a pair of pliers (keep in mind you need to hold the shape till the plastic cools to retain shape)

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Place housing back into oven for 3-5minutes, remove, press (squeeze) AND hold this 275*F (135*C) housing together for 2-3min or until cool. Take your waterproof sealer and run a bead along the housing seam to recreate the waterproof barrier.
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Congratulations! Hopefully you should now be enjoying a very unique mod. Install headlamp to nose; nose to bike; enjoy! :bouncy:

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Special thanks to Father Azmodious for allowing me to use his headlamp for this write-up and for all the photos used within! :notworthy:
 
#34 ·
Can some people please post up pics of their effort? I'd like to see different colour combinations and in particular all black.

:thumbup:
Ditto. +2

I am actually going to be doing this here shortly with painting everything black but then painting the projector housing from silver to tornado red to match the bike... think it will look nice!

-Nigel
 
#37 ·
I'm building my own angel eyes for my tornado red 2008. I'm going with red LEDs cause that's what lights up my fairings at night, but I didn't think of painting the buckets like that. Now I'm torn...:argue:. I'm going with the Gold Anodized levers, forks, wheels, etc. Should I paint the inside buckets Gold, or will Tornado Red be too much? AHHH!!!
 
#44 ·
Actually read through this again... is there a reason why to set the oven that high? I know when I baked my headlights above via my car we had it set on 225 for about 12 mins. Didn't get too hot but it was hot enough to start to reheat the silicon that is in headlights that seals them... almost 300 degrees seems like it might be a little too hot to start to warp something?

Again me just thinking aloud on this... would be interested to see other's who have done this.

Also what color is that "red" that you used?

Thanks,
-Nigel
 
#45 ·
Actually read through this again... is there a reason why to set the oven that high? I know when I baked my headlights above via my car we had it set on 225 for about 12 mins. Didn't get too hot but it was hot enough to start to reheat the silicon that is in headlights that seals them... almost 300 degrees seems like it might be a little too hot to start to warp something?

Again me just thinking aloud on this... would be interested to see other's who have done this.

Also what color is that "red" that you used?

Thanks,
-Nigel
so ur think lower and longer? vs hotter and same amount.
 
#50 ·
^That does work, except it will focus the heat on one place and the rest of housing is still stuck held together. I thought that I could get the whole housing hot enough it would come apart in one pull... not happinin. I started at one corner prying, out it back in the oven and kept working it in that process. good luck
 
#51 ·
I have one corner opened but it's all warped to shit because I was prying at it with the flat head screw driver...

When you kept putting it in the oven what were you using to keep it from sealing back together once you pried it open?

Round two doing it now..lol

I don't mind f'ing these up because I paid $60 for them on ebay KNOWING they were going to be put through this...lol

So then I don't have to destroy my good ones with the HIDS in it..lol

I also thought a heat gun might be good but I can definitely see more damage via the concentrated heat...

This is NOTHING like pulling my cars headlights apart by any stretch of the imagination..lol Here I was thinking that hardest part was going to be re-aligning the projectors...ROFL... Shit for all this amount of work just TRYING to get themn open I would be half temped to put s2000 projectors in the housing now... seems like a waste to NOT do that for the amount of work... and the amount of light that would through would be just disgusting...lol

-Nigel
 
#52 ·
All I can say is these headlights can suck a dick.

I tried oven with combination of heatgun and the only thing that is happening is that it's warping the outer black plastic shell.. I have one corner out but other than that it's useless...

I've never been so frustrated with something. I honestly think this is impossible to do with out destroying the shell.

I would have loved to paint the damn silver pieces black and the projectors gold... Looks like this isn't happening at all now...

YAY!

:-(

-Nigel
 
#53 ·
after reading about this mod, i directly went to the g-rodge and opened up the front of my daytona, to cool to pass up i thought. three horrible day of not being able to ride later, and it's complete. red around the lens, and black every where else. BADASS!!!
 
#56 ·
Check it out YEAY!!!
ROFL

This is a joke because I was getting so frustrated via spending 5 hours on it that this is the result!!!(HACKED TO SHIT!) I figured might as well do the color combo's that I had in my mind.. gold sides and red housing, and black sides and gold housings..

I LOVE the gold sides... I think that might look good with a gold projector housing or most likely black projector housings.
I thought I would like the black sides with gold projector housings but it doesn't POP like I wanted it to...

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Gold side pieces
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Black side pieces
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Gold sides with red projector housings
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Black sides with gold projector housings
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Aspenbum:

Seriously how much and this may seem rude (but please please please don't take it that way) can you ensure that the housing is not going to get fubared... etc. IE: My pictures above. I have no issues putting the housings together as long as they mate up but I don't want to botch anything.

I was just so fucking frustrated with the above and it taking over 5+ hours that I started ripping shit apart on the headlights........ This is NOTHING like my s2000 reto on my cars lights at all...
I thought at the time THAT was hard like probably a 7 out of 10...

This is a fucking 18 out of 10 via breaking the headlamps apart.

I am now playing with color schemes.
Gold sides are for sure. I can't decide if I want to do black projectors with gold or red outer front lip.. think time attack.
Or gold sides and gold projectors..

I got another doner pair coming from ebay... I will be damned if I don't get this done correctly...

kyledern what method did you use to open them up?

-Nigel
 
#59 ·
its just really time consuming. i got mine apart just ended up taking 2.5 hrs over 2 days of working on them. once u get a spot open stick golf tees in the opening and that way when u stick them back in the oven to reheat it does go back together. just get a buddy over and a couple flat head screwdrivers and work at it.
i had zero problems with the wires and zero alignment issues. :grin: