Smoked Headlight Mod -- my experiment results are in!

I wanted something more masculine looking than the OEM chrome headlights on my Taco, but I'm generally not a huge fan of the all-out BHLM on silver streak Tacos in most cases (although I have seen exceptions where it looks cool on some builds).

Here is the before with OEM chrome lights:




I wanted something in between chrome and black...something closer to the newer OEM smoked headlights on 2009+ Tacomas.

So I did a smoked headlight mod last nite using chrome blackout shadower made by Duplicolor. I give full credit to EverTaco23 for the Duplicolor idea. Thanks man!

The blackout kit costs $17 at O'Reilly and comes with a can of clearcoat, but I didn't end up using the clearcoat at all.



For the headlight mod procedure, I followed Viet2100's awesome how-to thread: http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/lighting/65226-how-black-head-light-mod.html


Disassembled bezel before chrome black out:




And after black out:




The photo really doesn't do justice to what it looks like in person. It just looks like black paint in the pic, but in person it looks like translucent black chrome. I used 2 coats put on 20 minutes apart, but you could do more coats to make it darker or fewer to make it lighter.

My biggest tip for using the chrome black out is don't do this mod at night under fluorescent shop lights, especially when it's 45 degrees and raining outside like I did

Do it in proper daylight so you can see what the heck you are doing when you spray the blackout on, because it's tricky to get it even on each bezel and consistent between the driver and passenger side headlights. The blackout is not a paint, it's a transparent overcoat that tints the existing chrome.

After installing lights back in the truck (compare to first pic above):




Close up...it looks pretty close to the newer OEM smoked headlights, but maybe a slight shade darker. It's kinda weird, because up close in person it has a slight bluish tint. But you can't detect the blue when you are standing more than like 5 feet away.




And with my favorite bro'd out lighting configuration...fogs, amber running lights, and parking lights all on




And there you have it!

 

looks good.

 

Very cool man. Didn't know they had "bro's" in WA. HAHA

 

you should try doing the reflector bowls

 

OH, we have em

 

It's not really, I was just making fun of myself.

 

You don't think it would effect the lights functionality?

 

Awsome Job! that looks awsome! Way Better then the BHLM. Looks more like newer OEM lights.

I may do mine soon! I was ganna just buy some, but now Im re-thinking it. How hard was it to re-seal them?

 

Thanks man! I have to say it was all kind of a bitch, hahaa. Re-sealing them was a piece of cake, it was getting the two halves apart that was the hard part.

If you have the money to buy the real OEM headlights, I would say just go for it. But doing the DIY version worked great if you are cheap like me and don't mind giving up a several hours of your time. $17 bucks for DIY vs. a couple hundred for OEM seemed worth it to me.

 

Lol. This is exactly what I was planning on doing. Same paint and all.

Looks great. More depth than the BHLM.

 

Thanks man.

Yeah I'm definitely glad I did it. In the pix the difference is subtle but in person it looks way better than the bright chrome did. Makes the truck look subtly less girly.

 

I LOVE IT!

 

It probably would. The amber running lights are noticably less bright (I kind of like them better that way) so I would bet the headlights would be way less powerful if the bowls were blacked out.

 

Thanks!

 

I think when I do mine, Im not ganna paint inside the DTRL's.
But I freakin love the way they looK!!! Waaayyy! better then Black spray paint.

 

Nice! You should do the grill next.

 

i wouldnt do the bowls.....llooks badass as is!

 

Yeah, I'm debating whether or not to do a color matched silver grille bezel and black grillcraft mesh grille...

 

^ you should just go for it ant tint the chrome on the grill and all the badges.

 

Looks great!