Diy:replacing Lenses With K-spec Smoked Lenses
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 5,754
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Vehicle: 1997 Tiburon
This DIY is for removing your old lenses either on a stock tailamp or aftermarket lights.
Reasons for replacing lenses:
- They look much better than the ricers that toss on overlays with 3Mtape.
- If you have aftermarket lights and do not have perfect fitment this will fix that problem.
- Also if you toss it on original lenses it will stick out on the corners and look like ass.
Reasons for not replacing lenses :
- Because you don't like the smoked lenses
- Because your lazy and you just want to do a half ass job with 3M tape tongue.gif
- Major reason is because your afraid of water getting into them. Well you CAN make them water resistant.
Tools Needed:
- Small flat head
- Heat gun ( if you have after market tails )
- dremel
- Pliers, I used tile pliers.
- Liquid gasket. It's like silicon.
- Electric tape because it stretches and easy to clean
- Windex, papertowel
- Diet soda of your preference tongue.gif
1.Start off by removing your tailamp. Then remove the bulbs and wiring harness and anything else you have there.
2.Get your dremel and start cutting around the edge of the lamp making sure you leave enough room so you do not cut any of the tailamp housing. Picture thanks to 2UNIQ
3. FOR STOCK TAILAMPS Once you removed the lense, place on a baking sheet place tailamps in the oven at 300F for 3 minutes, then remove and try to pry out the rest of the lenses thats left around the edges with pliers or screw driver.DO NOT PUT AFTERMARKET TAILAMPS IN THE OVEN. They will melt. Go to step4 if you have aftermarket lights.
4. FOR AFTERMARKET TAILAMPS With a heat gun carefull heat the sides of the tailamps, small sections at a time making sure you do not melt anything. I would recommend low heat. Try to heat up the sealant instead of the actuall plastic lense. Aftermarket tails are hard to remove the lense from the sealant but it can be done with time and patience.
5. Use your pliers to pull up on the lense, or use a flathead to get under it and pull up. I used both techniques.
6. Once you removed all the remaining lenses it will look like this.
7. Clean off the lenses and anything inside. If you have stockers you can spray paint the instead because they have an awful silver inside. I would suggest you keep the peice of plastic infront of the bulbs that you saw above so it despences light evenly though out the headlamp. 2UNIQ decided to remove his, you can if you wish. Here is a pic.
8. Once cleaned, take your sealant at put a thick bead all away around the tailamp over the old sealant. I wouldnt recommend removing the old sealant because it adds more protection and also lets you use less of your sealant. Moisture in your tailamp depends on this step and the next two so make sure to take your time and use lots of sealant.
9. Place the tailamp on a flat surface and press the kspec lenses on top, you dont need to remove the 3M tape but peel off the backing. Once they are on take them to your car and while holding them test and look at the fitment. Adjust lenses accordingly while sealant is still wet.
10. Once you have them on like you'd like, with somebody else holding the lamp flat with the lenses pointing up, start wrapping the lenses TIGHTLY as you can with electric tape. If you can't find anyone to help you, then you can use elastics before taping them to hold them in place. This option is a bit harder and you will get dirty with sealant.
11. Let the sealant dry. I would recommend waiting 20-24h before removing the tape.
12. Once you remove the tape, take some more sealant on your fingure and run it along the sides of the tailamp to be 100% sure.
13. Let dry, and then clean off any excess and your lenses and there you have it. Now install the bulbs, harness and gasket if you have one. If you have a stock tailamp purchase 1157 RED bulbs with 2 194 RED bulbs.
Pic thanks to 2UNIQ. This is with the plastic light dispenser inside the tailamp removed.
Heres them with tape:
For the people that have thought on removing the lenses off aftermarket lights and leaving them like that you would have to cut the lenses off and leave the rim on the side like step 2. Once your finished that sand the lense rims so that it looks like thats how you bought it. If you decide you want to remove the whole lense its going to look like crap. Heres why.
You can see the groove from the old lenses and all so all the glue that is almost impossible to remove every bit off it unless your ruin your housing.
Heres what they look like with just the lenses removed for ^^^ those guys that want no lenses.
I will take a before and after picture once everything is set and dry. I would recommend you have a spare day you can do this or you have another car to drive. You can drive the car with the tape on the lenses but I wouldn't recommend it unless you let it dry for atleast 6 hours before putting them back on and it's clear weather. Like I did for the left lamp.
Also thanks to Blacktibs for his help aswell.
Reasons for replacing lenses:
- They look much better than the ricers that toss on overlays with 3Mtape.
- If you have aftermarket lights and do not have perfect fitment this will fix that problem.
- Also if you toss it on original lenses it will stick out on the corners and look like ass.
Reasons for not replacing lenses :
- Because you don't like the smoked lenses
- Because your lazy and you just want to do a half ass job with 3M tape tongue.gif
- Major reason is because your afraid of water getting into them. Well you CAN make them water resistant.
Tools Needed:
- Small flat head
- Heat gun ( if you have after market tails )
- dremel
- Pliers, I used tile pliers.
- Liquid gasket. It's like silicon.
- Electric tape because it stretches and easy to clean
- Windex, papertowel
- Diet soda of your preference tongue.gif
1.Start off by removing your tailamp. Then remove the bulbs and wiring harness and anything else you have there.
2.Get your dremel and start cutting around the edge of the lamp making sure you leave enough room so you do not cut any of the tailamp housing. Picture thanks to 2UNIQ
3. FOR STOCK TAILAMPS Once you removed the lense, place on a baking sheet place tailamps in the oven at 300F for 3 minutes, then remove and try to pry out the rest of the lenses thats left around the edges with pliers or screw driver.DO NOT PUT AFTERMARKET TAILAMPS IN THE OVEN. They will melt. Go to step4 if you have aftermarket lights.
4. FOR AFTERMARKET TAILAMPS With a heat gun carefull heat the sides of the tailamps, small sections at a time making sure you do not melt anything. I would recommend low heat. Try to heat up the sealant instead of the actuall plastic lense. Aftermarket tails are hard to remove the lense from the sealant but it can be done with time and patience.
5. Use your pliers to pull up on the lense, or use a flathead to get under it and pull up. I used both techniques.
6. Once you removed all the remaining lenses it will look like this.
7. Clean off the lenses and anything inside. If you have stockers you can spray paint the instead because they have an awful silver inside. I would suggest you keep the peice of plastic infront of the bulbs that you saw above so it despences light evenly though out the headlamp. 2UNIQ decided to remove his, you can if you wish. Here is a pic.
8. Once cleaned, take your sealant at put a thick bead all away around the tailamp over the old sealant. I wouldnt recommend removing the old sealant because it adds more protection and also lets you use less of your sealant. Moisture in your tailamp depends on this step and the next two so make sure to take your time and use lots of sealant.
9. Place the tailamp on a flat surface and press the kspec lenses on top, you dont need to remove the 3M tape but peel off the backing. Once they are on take them to your car and while holding them test and look at the fitment. Adjust lenses accordingly while sealant is still wet.
10. Once you have them on like you'd like, with somebody else holding the lamp flat with the lenses pointing up, start wrapping the lenses TIGHTLY as you can with electric tape. If you can't find anyone to help you, then you can use elastics before taping them to hold them in place. This option is a bit harder and you will get dirty with sealant.
11. Let the sealant dry. I would recommend waiting 20-24h before removing the tape.
12. Once you remove the tape, take some more sealant on your fingure and run it along the sides of the tailamp to be 100% sure.
13. Let dry, and then clean off any excess and your lenses and there you have it. Now install the bulbs, harness and gasket if you have one. If you have a stock tailamp purchase 1157 RED bulbs with 2 194 RED bulbs.
Pic thanks to 2UNIQ. This is with the plastic light dispenser inside the tailamp removed.
Heres them with tape:
For the people that have thought on removing the lenses off aftermarket lights and leaving them like that you would have to cut the lenses off and leave the rim on the side like step 2. Once your finished that sand the lense rims so that it looks like thats how you bought it. If you decide you want to remove the whole lense its going to look like crap. Heres why.
You can see the groove from the old lenses and all so all the glue that is almost impossible to remove every bit off it unless your ruin your housing.
Heres what they look like with just the lenses removed for ^^^ those guys that want no lenses.
I will take a before and after picture once everything is set and dry. I would recommend you have a spare day you can do this or you have another car to drive. You can drive the car with the tape on the lenses but I wouldn't recommend it unless you let it dry for atleast 6 hours before putting them back on and it's clear weather. Like I did for the left lamp.
Also thanks to Blacktibs for his help aswell.
Senior Member
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 763
Likes: 0
Vehicle: 1999 Hyundai Tiburon SE
looks very nice. just a caution though, I know cops around here are picky about having two red reflectors on the back of the car (one on each side). This mod removes those with the smoked covers,.. (although you may still get away with it fi you have the aftermarket lights,.... they have a reflector on the inside?) just a note of caution. I thought of doing it and putting two small strips of reflective tape or reflectors on my bumper.
looks very pretty nontheless fing02.gif
looks very pretty nontheless fing02.gif
Senior Member
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 1,264
Likes: 0
Vehicle: 2000 Hyundai Tiburon
I just want to add somthing, you dont need to cut out the old lense
Ive done it to lights with just a few mins with a good heat gun and pulling the whole lens off in tact. Hopfully that helps some people w/out a dremel smile.gif
Ive done it to lights with just a few mins with a good heat gun and pulling the whole lens off in tact. Hopfully that helps some people w/out a dremel smile.gif
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 5,754
Likes: 0
Vehicle: 1997 Tiburon
^^ Really? If you have stockers you can just put them in the oven as I mentioned above but if you have aftermarket, you will not be able to remove the lenses as a whole with a heat gun. You can try, but you'll see why. They don't use a sealant that when heated melts, they use a rubber substance when heated only gives out just a bit.