AE Headlights, Refinished Lenses, and repainted grill

First off, I wanted to refinish the lenses on my headlights because they were very pitted and also wanted clear lenses because I planned to install high intensity discharge lights and having a pitted lens can blind other drivers. While at it, I figured I would paint the surrounds black, they call this AE headlights, as the 2001 Maxima Anniversary Edition has them. While at it, my grill was very pitted and showed a lot of white specs of chipped plastic, I figured I would paint the grill.

Above are the lights and grill as they were before starting the project.

The clear corner lights must be removed to remove the headlights, which themselves are a pain as the grill must be removed and you need a universal joint and socket extensions.

Above you can see the clips that hold the grill in. Apparently according to the Nissan Factory Service Manual you are supposed to twist the square 45 degrees with a screw driver then it fits through the hole. This was not possible so I just took a flathead screwdriver and gently pried the entire clip out along with the grill. They make the simplest things a royal P.I.T.A.

Above you can see I got the grill off, also too my Nissan logo just fell out, but I fixed that later with some Shoe Goo

Looks pretty without a grill eh? lol o_O

Above you can see the grill taped off and starting to be painted in flat black. The center image is of the top half of the grill painted flat black, the right image is of the finished product with clear coat. I bought the flat black because of the AE headlights and only wanted to use one can for the entire job including the grill, thats why I used leftover clearcoat on top of the flat black.

MMMMM!!! Cookies..oh wait...awww...that's a headlight. I baked it for 12 minutes at 190 degrees F to soften the glue to pry the lens off.

Lens off the housing

Sanded the lenses first at 400 grit, 800, 2000, rubbing compound, polish, then wax

I've never seen my car so ugly.

Above you can see in the mean time I taped off the housings to paint them AE style.

Above you can see the finished product.

And here it is finished, with the grill and lights on the car!

Cleared and smoked tails

I hated the stock look of the rear lenses with the orange turn signals with those red sidemarker pieces. I took some flourescent light cover that I bought in a huge sheet at The Home Depot for $6.27, took the stock lenses out and replaced it with this. I did the reverse lights too so it matches.

Above is what it looked like stock.

Above are the tails with the lens covers and orange lenses taken off. I baked them in the oven like with the headlights. You can also see the ugly red reflector thingies I chose to remove as well. These have a bulb that illuminates them and I just removed the bulb also.

Above is my paper template I cut out, and the acrylic that I cut out accordingly with a dremel.

Above are the tail light lenses, you can see I put the flourescent light cover in with the pointy parts facing in. I cut them perfectly to the size at which they stayed inside by themselves so I did not have to screw with any gluing.

Above are the housings, I just did a real quick light spray painting of flat black. Just enough to gray the inside of the housings a bit to give the lights a slightly smokey look.

Above you can see what it looks like with just the sides. I did the same to the reverse lights and see below for the finished product: