Well spent like 5 hours today on these suckers so thought it was thread worthy, interesting or not. Traded a Forum member some gloss black stockers for a set of 3rd gen's. The 3rd Gen's had the good old stress cracks in the lenses like all the shitty aftermarket ones. I had Gen 2's that I got a good deal on, I gloss blacked them and attempted to fix the crappy cutoff line. Still sucked, but wasnt as embarassing in traffic as before. After like 4-5 months with them I got tired of them and jumped at the oppurtunity to get another set. NEVER BUY GEN 2 HEADLIGHTS. THEY SUCK HARD NUTZ.

Need proof? Heres the cutoff line the day I got them:

I was embarassed. So i tried to take them apart and fix. Did this:



Why would they even manufacture that stupid ****... :face palm:

And all that work got me was this:


Better, but still...wtf?

Anyways so today i went to work on dissasebling the Gen 2's and taking the OEM lens i put on them, and sticking it on the Gen 3's after I fixed up the Gen 3.

First of all, Gen 3's are BY FAR the easiest headlight lenses to remove. No tools required, unlike the OEM's where i wind up with a flathead in there tearing at the sealant and i wind up cracking the housing in small areas in the corners usually. Nothing that a bit of silicone wont fix but just something I noticed. Gen 3's are not attached with any tabs, just 3 metal clips that pop off. The rest if all sealant. In the oven, 15 minutes or whatever, i dont time it, then get on a pair of gloves, start in the outer corner and just seperate. Should come apart like butter. But while your pulling the lens from the housing your gonna have sealant stretching across so keep grabbing a scissor or whatever and chopping it otherwise when you take the lense off all of the sealant will fall onto the black housing and youll have a bitch of a time taking that off with Goo Gone. On to the pics:

Lens off


Cracks:


Little work area pic:


Gotta nightshade those gay orange reflectors:


Was gonna make the the whole light glossy black instead of black plastic, but I decided not too as its not that big of a difference and maybe 1 person will notice the entire time I own them.

Removed these little bastards that mess up the cutoff line. Looked up the how-to on this site because I remember see'ing it somewhere that the 3rd Gen's cut-off was messed up.

I wonder why they even installed them? There has to be a reason.

Old and New:


Then wanted to see how I wanted to wire them. The other light's LED's worked fine, of course when I did the 2nd light and got the camera the middle one was blown, but anyways I decided against wiring up the gay LED's on the bottom:



Installed:

 

Looks great! Glad to see you replaced the lens with OEM so you won't get spider cracking. And good move on the no leds. I did that as well and it looks much better. If I were you though, I would have replaced the halos with CCFL replacements so they were actually bright enough to see. I think the 3rd gen ones are too dim. Oh, and I LOVE the night shaded orange reflector. The side marker in the gen 3s is a horrible design in my opinion.

That last pic looks badass too

 

i have to say though the 3rd gens are my least favorite what you did with them makes them look great on your car

 

Thanks man, and i was thinking about that. I still gotta get myself a new set of HID bulbs for these, but Im gonna be repainting my entire car ornange, so the yellow bulbs are gonna be no more, and im thinking about either getting 12K HID's or see'ing about getting a custom Orange bulb from 3B spec. If I do that I might also take them apart again and throw a colored ring inside of them. I was gonna wait to do the headlights entirely untill after i painted the car but I just got them today and just decided to bang them out

lol I didnt like them at 1st, and on my old LT i bought the 2nd gen's, but the 3rd gen's grew on me and the 2nd gens started to **** me off. I appreciate you liking them on this car though

I was even thinking about taking the LED's out, sanding the holes for them off, and using some fiberglass to fill the holes and make it smooth on the bottom. That was also alot of work I didnt feel like doing

 

I didn't read **** but that looks badass youre welcome

 

Oh yea, I keep forgetting your getting it painted orange. When's that happening anyway? Orange HID bulbs would be badass, along with orange fogs and halo's etc.

 

Im finishing up a motorcyle gas tank and fenders, then i gotta fix some SS/SC rims that i fucked up, then my car. So maybe 2 weeks ill start sanding it and tearing it apart

lmao i didnt plan on writing that much, but i kept clicking :edit post: and adding more ****