[*]
[*]
For quite a while I've been thinking of making the headlights on my work Delica darker....tinted/smoked.
The E30 boys remove the lens/cover and fit crosshairs to the main beam then paint the surround around the projector lens on the dipped beam. I had been thinking of doing this to mine when I had the time.
A month or so ago I was reading the 'murdered out' thread and someone mentioned a product called 'fly eyes kit' which is a perforated film you can stick over your lights to give a tinted effect.
www.flyeyeskit.co.uk/
I figured this would be a much easier route to go regarding the tinting so promptly ordered a kit and waited.
When the kit arrived I wasted no time in getting it fitted to the lenses. It really is fantastic stuff....so easy to apply and actually as good as they make out in the demo video on the website. For once a product exceeded my expectations!!
This was the result - taken about 1 month ago:
I tinted the main headlight units, corner lights and sidelights/indicators and still had enough left to do the small lights on my Fugitive and also (as demonstrated to the A52 regulars whilst drunk last weekend) the Rascal.
I was pretty happy with this except in some lights the headlamps didn't look as dark as I would have liked.
Then fate played its hand!
As a lot of you will know, my Delica was used for some filming a week or so ago and they wanted the motor to look like something out of Mad Max. I made grilles/riot shields for it and the props dept then sprayed emulsion paint all over to give it a weathered look. This looked brilliant....
.....except that when I came to wash the emulsion off, it wouldn't come out from between all the dimples in the fly eyes mesh so I was left with a nice black mesh effect with a murky finish in all the holes!
When I was stripping the Delica down last weekend to get it ready for painting I decided to pull off all the fly eyes kit and order a new set to start again (normal road grime/dirt and mud washes out easily...it was only the emulsion that didn't)
Over the weekend Ian (BiAS) was looking at the lights as I was explaining the reason for removing the film when he said "why don't you paint the inner surround and fit some crosshairs"
That was it...he'd re-ignited my desire to tint out my lights the original way so I dug out my 'spare' headlight, stuck it in the oven on 100 degrees for half an hour and prised the lens off, then got busy with the strip down (not that simple on these lights!), the scotch pads, acid etch primer, satin black, some corn flakes packets and some sheet steel (with more stain black to follow)
Here are the results...compared to one of my original lights off the Delica.
After some reassembly and some heat to get the lens back in, I was very happy with the results.
I then thought I would try the headlight with some offcuts of fly eyes that I had left (three leftover strips just managed to cover the lens to give me an idea of how it would look)
Fully murdered out lights!
The light output with the original fly eyes wasn't noticably different than without it (i.e. it made no reall difference to lighting and passed the MOT fine) and the crosshairs & painted surrounds shouldn't affect light output either so I should be able to run with the lights like this with no real affect on the light output.
I got so engrossed with doing this little mod (in time to fit them once the Delica is painted this weekend) that I forgot to take any shots of the process...but I will get some tomorrow and update this thread to show how I did it including making the crosshairs etc...
Some of you might find it useful??
The E30 boys remove the lens/cover and fit crosshairs to the main beam then paint the surround around the projector lens on the dipped beam. I had been thinking of doing this to mine when I had the time.
A month or so ago I was reading the 'murdered out' thread and someone mentioned a product called 'fly eyes kit' which is a perforated film you can stick over your lights to give a tinted effect.
www.flyeyeskit.co.uk/
I figured this would be a much easier route to go regarding the tinting so promptly ordered a kit and waited.
When the kit arrived I wasted no time in getting it fitted to the lenses. It really is fantastic stuff....so easy to apply and actually as good as they make out in the demo video on the website. For once a product exceeded my expectations!!
This was the result - taken about 1 month ago:
I tinted the main headlight units, corner lights and sidelights/indicators and still had enough left to do the small lights on my Fugitive and also (as demonstrated to the A52 regulars whilst drunk last weekend) the Rascal.
I was pretty happy with this except in some lights the headlamps didn't look as dark as I would have liked.
Then fate played its hand!
As a lot of you will know, my Delica was used for some filming a week or so ago and they wanted the motor to look like something out of Mad Max. I made grilles/riot shields for it and the props dept then sprayed emulsion paint all over to give it a weathered look. This looked brilliant....
.....except that when I came to wash the emulsion off, it wouldn't come out from between all the dimples in the fly eyes mesh so I was left with a nice black mesh effect with a murky finish in all the holes!
When I was stripping the Delica down last weekend to get it ready for painting I decided to pull off all the fly eyes kit and order a new set to start again (normal road grime/dirt and mud washes out easily...it was only the emulsion that didn't)
Over the weekend Ian (BiAS) was looking at the lights as I was explaining the reason for removing the film when he said "why don't you paint the inner surround and fit some crosshairs"
That was it...he'd re-ignited my desire to tint out my lights the original way so I dug out my 'spare' headlight, stuck it in the oven on 100 degrees for half an hour and prised the lens off, then got busy with the strip down (not that simple on these lights!), the scotch pads, acid etch primer, satin black, some corn flakes packets and some sheet steel (with more stain black to follow)
Here are the results...compared to one of my original lights off the Delica.
After some reassembly and some heat to get the lens back in, I was very happy with the results.
I then thought I would try the headlight with some offcuts of fly eyes that I had left (three leftover strips just managed to cover the lens to give me an idea of how it would look)
Fully murdered out lights!
The light output with the original fly eyes wasn't noticably different than without it (i.e. it made no reall difference to lighting and passed the MOT fine) and the crosshairs & painted surrounds shouldn't affect light output either so I should be able to run with the lights like this with no real affect on the light output.
I got so engrossed with doing this little mod (in time to fit them once the Delica is painted this weekend) that I forgot to take any shots of the process...but I will get some tomorrow and update this thread to show how I did it including making the crosshairs etc...
Some of you might find it useful??
