Has anybody smoked there OEM headlights

I’m thinking about smoking my OEM headlights. I’ve seen some videos were people open the headlights and paint the inside. Does anyone have pictures or do this in the SF Bay Area? thanks

 

Why would you take something that is designed to emit light and paint a dark opaque haze over it? They work better when they are clear.

I equate that to stuffing a rag in your air intake, to reduce the performance of the engine... "But it looks cool"

Form follows function

 

I smoked headlights once. Zero buzz.

 

Dis you?

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/bhlm-gone-horribly-wrong.538082/

 

There's a difference between painting the reflector or lense surfaces and painting the internal bits that have no effect on light output.

 

The term "smoked" refers to painting the lens with a transparent "smokey" tint.

 

Sometimes. If the OP wanted to do that I doubt the question of how to open the headlights up would've been asked.

 

I never thought about what people might be using to smoke the headlight lens-- what colorant is used, do you soak in fabric dye or ??

I have opened my gen1 headlights several times. The recipe I converged on is:
0. Remove all metal and anything extraneous from the headlights
1. Preheat oven to 270 F
2. Turn off oven
3. Quickly open oven and place one headlight in oven
4. Let headlight sit in oven for 10 mins on a baking sheet while the oven is off and therefore slightly cooling over time
5. Remove headlight and pry apart while still warm

The actual procedure is quick and painless.

To re-assemble, reverse the process. I like having the oven off while actually heating the headlight so any extreme temperatures due to thermal cycling are avoided since some gas and electric ovens seem to operate via a 'bang-bang' controller without any linear finesse. For an official recipe, look up the installation pdf for a retrofit kit from theretrofitsource.

 

You spray it on the inside of the lens. Either take it apart or through the light socket holes.

 

Problem with this method on the 3rd gens, is that Toyota uses a form of permanent sealant.
To remove the devil's snot may require putting it into the oven multiple times.

 

I think you have to heat them up like this...

 

Dam that was a good laugh thanks

 

With gen1 the trick was to get TYC replacements which have the thermoplastic sealant. I have no idea how this works in gen3...

 

3rd Gen TYC replacements are also permasealed

 

I do appliance repair, i know a thing or two about ovens.

1 setting the oven to 300, or any temp for that matter, does not make the oven go to 300 and stay. They typically go at least 50 degrees above the set point on preheat. It takes 15 min for them to settle down.

After the preheat, they still do not maintain a temp. They average it. It will cycle up and down above and below the set point.

All ovens vary. Some go plus and minus 50 degrees, some 25 degrees. Gas is faster than electric ,both up and down. Gas is more direct heat to part than electric.

If you lay a towel on the rack, and it covers the whole rack, you insulate the lower section which will not be good. Don't do that. (See fire pictures above)

As previously posted, heat it up, turn it off, then put them in. Do not bake them with the oven on.

 

I bought my truck with blacked out headlights. They did a spray and then a film.. worst thing ever. Couldn’t see anything at night and couldn’t remove it. Replaced them with new headlights from Tacoma Beast with black housing.

 

Thanks for all your input but I used the wrong word smoked. I like the clear headlight look with black housing. Does Tacoma beast still sell them.

 

I just bought a 2017 with 15k miles on it. The person who had it before did a lot of mods, including either replacing or smoking the headlights. They look awesome but I can't see a damn thing at night. I am going to have to replace those things at some point.

 

Lol this is my new favorite thread, right next to the tinder date shitting herself