Well, we decided to give it a whirl and continue the black-out process into the headlights (Thanks for the push to do it Ghosthound!)! This meant doing the "Joey Mod". I had read a few threads by other Mini owners who had done this mod and the results always looked awesome. I wanted to do it but my husband was weary of cracking open the set of $2,000 (or whatever they cost) headlights.

After a bit more research and persuasion, I won out and he agreed to help me do it! While I was searching on NAM, I found a thread by another member who had an Electric Blue Mini and he painted his headlights black and EB. I wanted to do the same with mine so I ordered a can of Laser Blue spray paint from MinSpeed and got some semi-gloss black for the rest of the headlight unit.

I must say that this mod is definitely very intimidating but that's really all it is! It's actually pretty easy to do and didn't take all that long! It only took us about a total of three hours to do both headlights including the time it took for the paint to dry between coats! I didn't want to put the headlights in the oven so we actually used a heat gun and a hair dryer at the same time to heat up the sealant. After only a couple of minutes of both of us heating it up, the two halves opened up very easily.

We discovered that we did need some precision torx screwdrivers to remove one of the plastic parts from one of the chrome pieces and unfortunately, we didn't have the right tools. So my husband had to run off to the hardware store to get them. While he was gone, I started the disassembly of the second headlight myself and had the whole thing apart in only about 15 minutes!

We took all the chrome pieces and really scuffed them up with steel wool so that the paint would adhere. We did about four coats of paint on the various pieces and then put everything back together. It all went back together with no problems at all and we just reheated the sealant to reattach the two halves. The sealant is extremely gummy and strong.

I didn't get the chance to take any pictures of the process but I did take a few today of the results! I really love the look of them. It's kind of hard to see in the photos because of the reflectiveness of the plastic. I think they look a lot better in person.

Let me know what you guys think!

Thanks,
Celia

 

nice job, i like the contrast ring

 

Nice work!

 

HAWT! Laser Blue and all blacked out is totally smokin'. The fully painted factory aero kit looks pretty good too!

 

looks great!

what to come to alabama and do mine??

 

Lookin good, you got the hottest R56 around.

 

Awesome job...love the little blue accent on the inside. It's all in the details

 

Your R56 is freakin "SICK!" I love it!

 

You car's looking more and more awesome! I really like the blue ring around the Xenons. Nice!

And I just noticed that you touched up the MINI logo on the hood w/ blue too. Very, very cool.

 

Simply amazing Celia!! You continue to impress. Perhaps you should go into the Mini Pimping business. Love the look of those headlights.

 

I agree!

 

...so, what's next?

 

In a word. . . . WOW!

 

Really nice.

 

Wow that looks really good. The body color part makes me tempted to do mine all body color (think new Corvette, Ferrari, etc).

 

Nice!

 

Awesome! +1 on the blue part too. I think I am going to do mine now. ......You have me thinking about the blue ring, not sure what color I can do mine since my car is silver.

 

Black on black

"It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black."

-Nigel Tufnel, Spinal Tap

 

 

That looks so sick!

Don't you guys worry about moisture leaking into your headlights after you crack them open and put them back together? I would....

 

Very Nice! Makes me want to try it now... but as you said, it is a wee bit intimidating. Kudos on tackling it!

 

Haha you are right.

 

Thank you for all the comments everyone! I'm glad to see that so many of you guys like it as much as I do! I think it's one of the best mods we've done to the car so far!


You don't need me! You can do it...I know you can! It really isn't hard at all!


Lyle from Vinyl Styles did those emblems for me. I really love what he did with them. It really makes them stand out!


LOL...I would LOVE to open up a Mini-pimping business! Now that would be FUN!


Well, I'm still waiting on my new wing so hopefully that will be next. I've also been looking into various interior options so that'll be coming up shortly!


Yeah, I noticed that on the new Corvettes. I saw a yellow one and it REALLY stood out! If you do a search for "Joey Mods" you should come across a thread where a NAM member did his all white to match his Mini. It looked pretty cool!


If you don't do solid black, you could maybe do black and silver to match your Mini...


We were concerned about this because my husband had a Subaru WRX in the past where the previous owner did a headlight mod and didn't seal it back up all the way so there were moisture problems. However, after we saw how these came apart and went back together, we weren't really concerned with it. The sealant is SO tacky and gummy that it re-adhered extremely easily and I don't think there's any way it didn't get a tight seal because of how sticky the material is. We just had a very hard rain earlier today and I drove the car tonight. So far, so good!

 

Really sharp looking job.

I am a fan of the chrome, but that looks very cool.

Very!

 

I must say that this is one creative mod. Superb !