I've been wanting to swap out my headlights and taillights for a while now, and from what I've found, FX4 Harley and Raptor trucks use the same "blackout" headlights and taillights. I would like to move away from the chromeness of my truck currently.

After talking with my cousin last night, he told me how he blacked out the taillights on his Mazda 3. Basically, he took his sander with 800 grit sand paper, and painted them with a black tinted clear coat. Another option (which he used on his older Mazda Protoge) is to use VHT "nite shades", and then put a clear coat over that.

Either of these options are viable for me, but if I go through with it, I'm planning on getting a set of take offs from Craigslist, so if I manage to screw it up, I still have a set to go on.

That covers it for the taillights.

For the headlights, that option won't work. However, I remember reading something years ago on a website dedicated to Rangers (not the Ranger Station) where the guy put his headlight assemblies in his oven just long enough to soften the glue that bonds the lens to the body and pulled them apart. Then he scuffed the chrome and painted the scuffed area to whatever colour it was (I recall black, but I could be wrong) and then used silicone to stick the lens back to the body.

But looking at the lights I have, I'm still going to have a headlight that looks odd compared to the stock Raptor set.

I've been on eBay and Amazon all weekend looking at different lights, and the only ones I'd consider are Recon, Spyder or Ford oem. Then there isn't a blackout 3rd brake light, so a Recon would look out of place if I went with the Ford ones, and the Recon lights are stupid expensive.

The Spyder smoked headlights have the right look, but I can't find any info on them being DOT approved. I suppose I could contact them... If they are, I'll probably go that way, and tint my taillights and 3rd brake light. I'll keep you all informed.

 

I have Spider taillights on my Impala..

 

I've given it a bit more thought, and I still don't know which way I want to go. I appreciate your input though, I'll keep sorting through eBay and Amazon. I think at this point though, the factory Raptor light set is cheaper than Recon, but I'm still not prepared to spend that much right now...