Originally Posted by rockstar143

Might as well...now is as good as any time:

Here are my lessons learned. Easier to type it here than to try and text you later:

1) don't rush and envision exactly what you're going to do
2) don't talk about fight club
3) Saturday night, remove bumper and headlights from car.
4) If you have time, I'd recommend you also open and paint your bezels Saturday night to give ample time for paint to dry.
5) to open 190 degrees at 9 minutes with no preheat...leave open to cool off between lights. now, this is the minimum time I was able to do it for...but it worked for me the first time (first is hardest). You also don't want the oem butyl stuff to get TOO soft cause when you pull apart it'll make little strings and once it sticks, it ain't coming off easily.
6) wear clothes you don't care about, the black butyl sucks. if possible, have someone ready with a screwdriver and papertowels to kinda cut the lines as you pull it apart to ensure it doesn't all on anything inside the lense.
7) Put the lense face down on something...do not wipe it down, do not touch it, do not sand it, do not jizz on it, do not let dust settle in it
8) Do not work in an environment with a lot of dust/dog hair etc...it will find a way in.
9) Paint your bezel...don't paint the reflector area of the turn signal/parking light, it KILLS reflectivity, especially with an LED bulb. The first time I did it, I taped off and used a razor to leave the back part of the reflector alone, but it still didn't shine well from the side. If you're going to put carbon fiber vinyl on the chrome corner area, make sure you have no bubbles, cut to fit and don't try and lift off and put back on repeatedly if possible.
10) Be patient (just a reminder). Paint your bezels and let dry overnight...DO follow the recommended drying time. 1 light tacky coat...then 1 coat every 15 minutes. Until it's good. Don't do too many coats to ensure it's nice and dry the next day.
11) Change out the projectors..this is easy enough...decide now if you want to paint the projector rings a darker gunmetal or anything.
12) Wait till Sunday morning to finish, new and fresh perspective, and everything will be dry. Use a pair of needle nose pliers to kinda snap off the back part of where they melted the little tabs that the chrome strip use to hold onto the amber diffuser. You'll see what I'm talking about...don't get frustrated and take your time, from the back, and push through once you've removed the melted material. This is where people break their chrome strip.
13) put it all back together...use a can of compressed air for any dust etc, and look in the light for any inadvertent fingerprints or hairs. heat up same as before...190, no preheat...at 8 or 9 minutes it should be soft enough to press back together...wear gloves you don't care about...the black stuff will get on it. Or no gloves so you can see where the butyl is on your hand to keep from smudging it. You can always clean it off the FRONT of the lens after but it's better to avoid that as much as possible.

START PRESSING BACK TOGETHER FROM THE OUTSIDE EDGE IN...it kinda clips into the end and pivots from that point and then you press the edges back together and work your way back toward part of light that's closer to center of car. (get it?) If the butyl starts getting too hard, back in oven for 5 minutes...this is not an exact process...so do it, press together, do it press together until you're able to bend all the tabs back into place (you'll see).

13) DO NOT put too much bytul. You want one small and single strand to run along the entire channel of the light. If you put too much, it will smoke up inside the lens when in the oven and make a fog that takes a while to go away. Use as little as possible to ensure there are no breaks in the butyl (only one seam, where you start and finish with it, and face it DOWN on the channel of the headlight, meaning start pulling and rolling thinner and putting into the channel from the bottom center...less chance of water ever getting in where you put them together)

14) Last thing I recommend is to run a blowdryer's hot air through the light assembly once you have it all put back together...I run a piece of garden hose, duct taped to a shop vac reducer...i lay it on the ground running for 10 minutes...hot air in the OEM fog bulb hole and coming out of the parking light hole...This helps a LOT with getting all the damp and humid air that's trapped in there OUT.

15) Put a little teflon tape around the base of all your bulbs to ensure a nice snug fit. Especially our fog bulbs are pretty loose to begin with and we don't want ANY new humidity in there.

you do NOT need to remove ballast/bulb etc...to put it in the oven.

expect some condensation in the coming months on cool mornings and when you wash the car...it takes quite some time for the lights to get acclimated and all the humidity to leave the light.

expect to find a hair or mosquito dead inside the light and don't focus on it. No matter how careful, you will have some imperfection but we still love you.

Good luck Austin...hope this helps.

Originally Posted by jonhenry81

any of u guys put any leds or halo's in once ya had em open?

Originally Posted by ssjoeboe9

Once in your headlight, paint everything GREEN. It'll look tight bro. Be the FIRST