DIY: Black Headlight Mod with Video Tutorial

[006]

Like many Tundra owners I have wanted to do the black headlight mod. Also, like many Tundra owners, I wasn't able to find any definite information with enough detail about the process. So I decided to just make a video of me doing it to my own 2008 Tundra. The video should be thorough enough for anyone to watch and be able to do this. It's not hard at all and only takes a few hour's time to do it. The hardest part is watching the paint dry and knowing its going to look great once it's done. The materials that I used were either laying around in the garage already or were bought from Home Depot. The stuff I bought at HD ($3 spray paint, $3 spray handle, $2 adhesive/sealant) was about $9.55 altogether. The cool thing is that you can take the spray handle back when you're done as long as you don't take the paper thing off of it. I know...I'm cheap, lol.

This is all based on my experience in the past few hours. I have done this before on my Ford F-150 that I traded in for the Tundra, so I was familiar with the process. The Tundra is about the exact same (screws are different and in different spots) <---with a few exceptions. I will say this now: This process worked perfect for me as you will see in the video, but I am NOT responsible for anything going wrong for anyone else. Ovens vary, climates vary (paint related), etc.

Here is the Video Tutorial. Right-Click -> Save As, please do not stream.

Here is the Text Tutorial:

.:Tools Needed:.

~Ratchet and 10mm socket
~#15 Torx Screwdriver
~#1 or #2 Phillips Screwdriver
~Decent sized Flathead Screwdriver
~Choice of spraypaint (pick any plastic/vehicle specific paint *krylon fusion/rust-o-leum equivalent*)
~Painter's Tape (the blue kind)
~Razor Knife/Blade
~Sealant/Adhesive (RTV works, I got one that was marine grade)
**optional**
~A fan (to help speed paint drying time)
~Gloves (the lens gets very hot after baking...I burned 3 fingertips)
~Spray Can Handle (makes for easier spraying)
~Steel Wool (to scuff the areas to be painted)
~Work Light (found it pretty handy for this mod)
~Patience (you'll need it)

.:The Process:.

Open your hood and take your ratchet and 10mm socket and take the top 2 screws out. Then take a flathead screwdriver and pry behind the plastic trim beneath the light housing where the two black plastic clips are to get them a little loose. Then take the same screwdriver and pry the clips out. Move to the other side of the trim and use a little bit of elbow grease to pull the trim from the body where it meets the body, pulling STRAIGHT FORWARD and the piece should come out after a few wiggles. You won't break it, I promise.

Then take the ratchet and take out the 3rd screw holding the light housing. Next, pull the housing straight out using a hand at the area where you pulled the black clips out and one on the top. It should come straight out. Then unplug all of the lights, the gray ones can just be pressed and removed while the black ones need a flathead screwdriver to lift the clips in order to be unplugged. The next step is to take the bulbs out of the housing by going in a counter-clockwise direction. Righty-Tighty, Lefty-Loosy. There is one bulb that is a little harder to get out than the other 3, use some force and it will come out.

Then take your #15 torx screwdriver and remove 6 screws that are on the back of the housing. Next, take your #1/2 phillips and take out the 3 screws you see where one of the bulbs go in. Then take a flathead screwdriver and pry up the rubber flashing, there should be an open spot in the plastic around it to get the flathead under the rubber, and then pull it up and off of the housing. Now you're ready to bake the housing.

Turn your oven on to 275 degrees and get out a cookie sheet that will be big enough for the housing. Also have your flathead standing by after baking. Make sure to adjust the rack(s) in your oven and double check that you can get the headlight+cookie sheet in there as high up as possible from the heating element. Some people have had problems where the housing gets too hot and slightly melts the corner (where the reflector is) due to it being too close to the element. Also, the headlight needs to be in the *center* of the oven. The melting is extremely rare because, so far, I've only heard of a single case of it out of the tons of people that have performed the mod. Beware that a replacement headlight is $$$ from Toyota. So just save yourself the hassle and do a quick check before-hand to make sure it'll fit in there properly. Once the oven is up to 275 put the housing in there. Wait about 9-12 minutes and then pull it out. As quickly as possible, but not rushing, use the flathead screwdriver to just scrape between the lens and the black housing all the way around, getting as deep as you can. This is to kinda loosen the adhesive. Then find a few good areas to grip on and pull the lens from the housing. This will take a decent amount of elbow grease as the adhesive is tough stuff. After about 30 seconds you should have the lens pried off. If you aren't wearing some kind of glove during this process try not to touch the center of the lens too much, it gets extremely hot and I actually burned three of my fingertips and it's a pain in the *** to type this right now. Owwie. Congratulations, the hardest part is over...except for the fact that you have to do this once more for the other headlight.

Next thing to do is take your #15 torx and take out the 2 torx screws that hold the chrome piece to the lens. Then you should be able to take it off. The orange reflector is only held on by a single little tab, just push it and the reflector should come out super easy. If you want to, at this point, you can scuff up the chrome a little using steel wool or a very fine grit sandpaper. This gives a nice semi-rough surface for the paint to adhere to. I chose steel wool because its what I have laying around. This step is not extremely necessary since you bought plastic/vehicle specific spray paint, but for some peace of mind I did it anyway. Then take your blue painter's tape and start masking the turn signal lens. I used 3 strips of 1 1/4" tape. Then take your razor and carefully cut along the line around the actual opening for the lens so that you are painting everything but the opening. I used a marker and made the lines where I needed to cut while using a light to shine through the tape so I could see the edges.

Now take your chrome piece to be painted and your spray paint and go outside, in the backyard, frontyard, wherever, just don't spray this thing near any other vehicles such as the restoration-in-progress 1968 Camaro SS I have in the garage or my Tundra w/ missing headlights. The overspray *will* adhere to anything it lands on so be careful. Take the spray can (and spray handle if you opted to get that) and hold it about a forearm's length from the chrome piece and start dusting it. Dusting is where you are lightly applying paint, in a left to right motion (or right to left...whatever), starting the spray before the piece and waving past it and continuing to spray until you are clear of the piece. Don't try to get a full coat in one try, you will need to do 3 to 5 coats anyway and trying to get it all in one shot will only create pools and runs. You definitely don't want that. Definitely.

I set up a huge fan and a box to set the pieces on so they will dry faster, however the more flat or matte of a paint you get the faster it dries. Glossy paint takes longer. I let them sit in front of the fan for about 10 minutes each coat before I did another one. Do about 3-5 coats making sure you get every spot on the housing. Once you are satisfied with the coverage you then need to peel off the masking around the turn signal lens using your razor blade. Re-install the orange reflector. Make sure to not ding the paint, even after 3-5 coats it can still ding and chip easily. This is a good time to make sure and clean the inside of the lens to get rid of any fingerprints you may have put on it. Put the painted piece back on the lens then replace the two torx screws to attach them together. Now take your lens and the adhesive you purchased and make sure to fill any spots that seem low on adhesive on both the lens and the housing. You don't want to miss any areas because if you do there is a high chance of moisture getting inside the light later on and that will look bad after a while. Really seal this bad boy up. Follow the setting and drying times for whichever adhesive you bought. Then just leave the light alone until the adhesive is set completely. Another way to do it is to just put the lens back on and bake the entire assembly again for another 9 minutes to get the adhesive gooey once more, when you pull it out just press the pieces together and hold for a few minutes until it cools off. What I did specifically was add adhesive, and then put the 6 torx screws back in, but only enough so they caught the threads on the lens, then I baked the entire peice for 9 minutes and when I pulled it out I tightened the screws down which pulled the lens and housing together with very litte effort. In the video I show the beginning of that process, but I forgot to take a clip of me screwing it together coming out of the oven...it makes it a lot easier.

Now all you have to do is put the 6 torx screws back on to attach the housing to the lens (if you haven't already done so), put the rubber pieces back on, the little ring with 3 phillips screws, the bulbs (righty-tighty), re-attach all of the plugs, screw the housing back on to your Tundra and pop the trim piece back in. Then enjoy a killer looking set of DIY black headlights. I recommend taking a cruise at least once around the block. Yes, that's silly but I love driving my Tundra

Hope you guys enjoy this tutorial and I believe I covered everything, but if not let me know and I'll make some additions/changes. Hopefully this gets stickied as I know a lot of people will find it useful.

[Mtrosclair]

Finished, took about three hours, just be very careful about cleaning the inside of that lens as it scratches easily

[07rcsb5.7]

Nice write up That looks nice was thinking about doing that to mine. I noticed I bought my tundra at the same dealership as you! Cool!

[rovin]

Thanks for taking the time to do the write up/video. I intend to do this to my white dc soon also.

[Mtrosclair]

Beware, even on low an oven can damage the light, anyone know how much a replacement will be....

[RudyDep]

Originally Posted by Mtrosclair

Beware, even on low an oven can damage the light, anyone know how much a replacement will be....

This mod has been sucessfully performed by numerous people without incident. I feel confident that it is a fairly simple mod and that with all of the awsome write ups on it, even those of us that are MOD CHALLENGED can perform it.

[Mtrosclair]

I'm not saying it can't be done , I am just saying that maybe my oven does not heat evenly and it caused a small spot to melt...... and as a result I would like to replace it... but even with a melted spot it still looks badarse!!! Looks like I will have to do the mod again when I get a new headlight

[RudyDep]

Okay, fair enough... but of the MANY that have done this, it has been sucessful and I wouldnt want anyone to NOT try simply based on that fact that ovens vary in temperature.

[006]

+1. If you damaged your light you left it in there too long or you pried too much and bent the plastic when trying to get the lens off of the housing. This occurred with mine as well but all I did was bend any part back into place before the plastic cooled and hardened again. Since, in your case, it melted, I would suggest anyone else trying the mod to do a lower temp, maybe 250 or even 235, but leave it in there for a couple minutes longer. Maybe 12 for 250, 15 for 235. Like I said in the write-up oven temps vary so that's the only thing that won't always be the same. And ditto, nobody should be afraid to do the mod, this is the first time I've heard of anyone damaging their light in the process...out of *tons* of people that have performed it.

As far as the video...I didn't realize YouTube has size limitations (10min/100mb) so now I'm having to chop up the video (which is about 20-30 minutes...who knew?!) so it will be in 3 segments most likely. The first 10 minute segment is being rendered right now and should be up within the next 1-1.5 hours. Apparently editing video and rendering it and everything takes longer than I thought, haha. So far it's coming out great though, I have everything covered so even if this mod was a no-brainer before, this video gives nobody an excuse!

And FYI to anyone not sure about how this would look on their truck...if it looks good on a *white* Tundra, it'll look good on any other color. Trust me.

[RudyDep]

Hey now...my excuse is im LAZY....how will your vid overcome THAT???

[Mtrosclair]

On further examination I realized what happened, it was not a time thing but the pointy corner was to near where the heat comes out of the oven so I think it should be added that you should keep the light assembly as high up in the oven as possible where the heat is more even without touching the top. NO ONE SHOULD BE SCARED OF THIS MOD it looks cool and is easy. just be careful.

[RudyDep]

Originally Posted by Mtrosclair

On further examination I realized what happened, it was not a time thing but the pointy corner was to near where the heat comes out of the oven so I think it should be added that you should keep the light assembly as high up in the oven as possible where the heat is more even without touching the top. NO ONE SHOULD BE SCARED OF THIS MOD it looks cool and is easy. just be careful.

I kinda thought that the light should be as close to the MIDDLE as possible. I can see where a corner could be an issue.

[Mtrosclair]

All you have to is make sure it does not hang down lower than the rest of the light, and since its thinner I guess it heated up faster than the rest of the light.

[006]

A quick update: The video is a total of 27 minutes and a few seconds long. What I'm doing now is just rendering the entire video into a single high quality movie, and then I'm going to chop that up into 10 minute segments instead of having to delete scenes and redo everything. Should take a little less time this way (in the long run). As said before, I'll update the first post with the segments as they get uploaded to YouTube. This 27 minute-long video is taking foooorrrrrrreeeevvvveeeeerrrrr to render though. I'm going to get something to eat, hopefully it'll be nearly finished when I get back. Worst case scenario: All three segments won't be ready until tomorrow. I'm hoping for sooner though...

Until then!

[006]

Ok, I got tired of waiting and trying to chop the movie up, and I also realized a few moments ago that I have a freakin' website with lots of storage and bandwidth. So. I've decided to just host it, in it's entirety on my site. It's uploading now and will take a little less than an hour.

The file is a 430.5MB AVI, so it will take about an hour for anyone to download, but it's the full thing and better quality than YouTube would give. I will post the link up when it's done uploading to my site.

I want to say this right now: Please, anyone that wants to see the video, just download it. Don't stream it from my site. I have 250GB of bandwidth, but downloading won't kill that as fast as streaming will. So, when I post the link up, just right-click->save as, save it to your computer. Plus that way you won't have to deal with buffering (430MB is a lot to buffer, ).

So check back here in an hour or two and it should be up.