Submitted by Anton English
Submitted by Anton English
What you will need:
We are going to assume that you have already taken your lights off the car, and are ready to take the lens off. There is a black rubber thing around the top of the light, take this off now, and set it aside. Its ok if your break the tabs that are holding it on.
Now take your flat blade and punch holes all over in the edges of the orange lens. We want to be careful not to break the face of the lens, as we will need it later on.
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Now that your lens is off you should have 2 big pieces, and a bunch of small fragments of the broken edges
We want to get as much of the orange off the edges of the light housing. It's not crucial that you get all of it, but as much as you can. Try using the edge of the pliers to pinch it off.
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Next we need to get a copy of the template for our new lens. There is one on this "how to" at the bottom. It should be printed out at the exact size it is now, and the fit to page option SHOULD NOT be used when printing. After you have printed out the copy cut it out and see if it matches up exactly to the edges of your old lens. Not the housing part but the orange lens part. If it fits move on, if not reprint it or make your own. You will want to trace the edges of the lens out on your new lens material. I lined it up so that the horizontal of the lens was parallel with the bottom of my template. That way when it is made the squares will match parallel with the car.
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Trace one sides of the template on the lens, then trace the opposite side of the template to make 1 set. One for the driver side and one for the passenger side. Once it is marked out you will use your Dremel tool to cut it out. If you do not have one, I suggest using Wal-Marts rental program. Just go buy the tool, use it for the day, and make sure u keep the receipt. Then when you are all done take it back for your full refund. I used the cutting wheel at first.
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You can't really tell but the wheel broke after 2 cuts. I ended up using a different attachment I had to buy. It looks like a tiny saw on the end of the shaft. It is metal so it didn't break. Cut the lens out as nice as you can. You can always touch it up later but the better job you do here the easier it is at the end. Now you are ready to heat it up. You may want to just line the newly cut piece up with the old cover to see if it is a close match. It should be if the template was right. Now heat up your oven to around 300 degrees. Throw the lens on a cookie sheet with the bumpy side facing up, and put it in the oven. Now wait. |
| It should only take 4 or 5 minutes to be pliable enough. While you are waiting you will want to get your bakers mitts on, and have the orange piece of old lens ready beside you. If you look in the oven and notice your lens is curling at the edges it is ready to come out. If it is not curling you could still check it, it doesn't take long to warm up. Especially if you are using a toaster oven. Now pull the hot lens out. (Still on the cookie sheet) put the old lens on top of it and curl the edge up to match the curve of the lens. Grab both ends of both lens and hold them together, as the material cools u will want to make sure u hold it snug up against the old lens. |
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It should be cool enough to hold its shape within a few minutes. While you wait for that to completely cool go back to your housing. Take your black marker and color all the edges where the old lens was attached. If there is orange fragments left then color over them as well. This step can be omitted if you like but it will help to create the look of the euro lights. As well as hide any orange you didn't get off. Now we want to re-attach the black rubber thing we pulled off first. Use your glue gun and glue it on there really good. Glue all the way around the underside of it. Next we want to make a small gasket type thing for the light to clear the little plastic part at the front end. Do this by just putting lots of glue around where all the black is that you colored in excluding the big part in the middle.
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Allow that glue to dry; we want it built up like that. Once that is dry, put some glue on all the parts of the black rubber thing (that we glued on earlier) where the lens will touch. There should be a little lip on it; we want the glue on the lower lip. Just a small amount of glue is good. Now put the lens on, hold it firmly on the parts we put glue on and allow to set for about 2 minutes. Now we will want to inject glue in the bottom part. Hold the lens so the clear part is pointing up, and the housing is down. You should be injecting the glue into the side of it. This will prevent any glue from dripping into the housing. You want to make sure that you get enough glue to seal it right off but not so much that it leaks into the housing. Do this step in small steps. You will want to make sure you press the lens firmly to the housing after each section, this will make the black lines we drew on earlier come right through to the surface. (You may also color your first "gasket" of glue with the black marker as well to make it show through a little more darker) once the whole thing is sealed let it dry and admire your work while you get ready for the other one. Put it back on the car and show your friends. |
Extra stuff: You can also spray the inside of your housing with metallic paint to make it show a little more reflective, and it should enhance the clear effect to look more like the Euro's. This same idea can be used to do some tails.
Here is the template for the clears. Copy it to your desktop by right clicking on your mouse, and clicking "save picture as". Then print your pic at the size it comes in.
If this sounds like too much work, I am selling them for $80. Just E-mail me for details.
Antonenglish@shaw.ca.
