Advanced bodging - painting a headlight reflector

[Suburban Guerrilla]

Hello, a stone hit the glass of my 1989 Mercedes 420sl. It made a small hole, but didn’t crack it. So water got in and rusted the reflector. A headlight is £600. A reflector £300. Removing a reflector is a pain as after 37years a lot of the little bolts are corroded. So… I bought some GO CHROME specialist headlight reflector chrome paint (it’s heat resistant). It’s £45 a can. The other option was silver barbecue paint. But I wanted the shine.

So I sanded off the rust to metal. It recommends you paint the whole reflector but being suspicious I masked the bits I didn’t need to do, as most of the reflector was acceptable.

well it’s certainly v shiny. If it tarnishes after a while - I’ll put some more on. I am impressed with the paint though.

first pic - at disassembly

After sanding 

after painting 

 

[Suburban Guerrilla]

By the way I bought a headlight glass and gasket for £100, I thought about araldite in the hole but thought I’d do it properly 

[Surface Rust]

Thanks for trying this, I was just looking at that same paint a week ago and wondering if it really worked. Both my Saab reflectors are tarnished and dull so I'll give it a go!

[Suburban Guerrilla]

I am going to do the other headlight in a day or two.

the paint costs £45 a can, to be honest I’ll never use it all up.

I’m new to autoshite, can you send personal messages, Surface Rust?

i live near Southend in Essex

If so, I’ll post you the can, save yourself £45, as long as you promise to post it back!

[grogee]

Wow that's a great finish, I tried something similar but got nowhere near those results

[juular]

My go-to bodge for these is aluminium foil tape, but that does look a hell of a lot better.

Wonder how well that stuff would work on chrome trim?

[Brigsy]

Looks decent. One of my renault extra headlamps is looking a bit dull, might give this a shot

[Mally]

I did it on a 2 CV years ago with some form of 'chrome' paint. cost about a fiver then. Passed MOT a couple of times.

[brownnova]

7 hours ago, Surface Rust said:

Both my Saab reflectors are tarnished

I too am experiencing this very thing…. And therefore find this very interesting! 

[Surface Rust]

13 hours ago, Suburban Guerrilla said:

I am going to do the other headlight in a day or two.

the paint costs £45 a can, to be honest I’ll never use it all up.

I’m new to autoshite, can you send personal messages, Surface Rust?

i live near Southend in Essex

If so, I’ll post you the can, save yourself £45, as long as you promise to post it back!

That's incredibly kind. I probably won't be thinking of doing it until the summer as I've nowhere dry to work on it at the moment, but it sounds like there are a few others thinking of doing the same!

Perhaps you could hire the can out at £10 a go +p&p!

[Westbay]

That's useful/impressive information - thank you 👍