Untitled by highalti2d, on Flickr
Before... Quite some time before, but you get the idea.
In practice, it mostly turns out to be quite easy. The hardest part is forming and shaping the sheet metal leafs to the inside of the high beam, without damaging the reflective material, scuffing it, or making it dirty. Doing it again, I think I'd just skip that part.
For those that aren't familiar or didn't read Mystery Machines post, the steps are;
Remove headlamp
1. remove bulbs, gears, wiring harness, clips and anything else that can come off
2. Insert into oven at oven temp of 100F (NOT 100C as one poor bugger did)
3. remove from oven, pry off front glass
4. remove silver surround
5. remove projector lens retainer.
6. Paint surround, retainer, and high beam reflector (the parts that aren't inside the bowl) black.
7. cut sheet metal to fit snugly inside high beam bowl, also paint it black
8. reassemble
Untitled by highalti2d, on Flickr
On the practical side of blacking out the high beam lens, the idea of metal leafs is good. As the reflector is designed to capture the light of the bulb, its shape is such that the bulb is the focal point, hence the closer that one can shape the sheet metal to the bulb, the more effective your efforts will be. An alternative that I had seen in a more modern bulb assembly is where the headlamp includes some sort of reflective dome over the bulb, as part of its assembly, and to just colour that dome black.
Anywho, doing it again, I think I'd just open the headlamp assembly and paint the silver surround black, and the projector lens retainer black and call it good.
Untitled by highalti2d, on Flickr
The finished project, somewhat negated by the glare of the reflection.
Untitled by highalti2d, on Flickr
And here is the final install, also somewhat lost by the glare of reflection on the glass lens. Oh well. Ultimately, the high beams are silvery black in their look as one changes their viewing angle from head on to above or below, left or right of dead centre.
Sigh... the things we do for looks, eh? (Or maybe it's just me)
(oops almost forgot, got some extra bits for sale from the old lamps if ya need anything http://www.delica.ca/forum/92-l300-head ... 14579.html)
