B7 head light modification - DRL

Hi All,

i'm new to this forum, and this is my first post.
i recently purchased a B6 cabrio, had a slight form ender so i got it at a decent price, as it needed many front end parts
i decided to do a B7 conversion.

whilst i had the B7 headlights i wanted to add the great Audi DRL feature. i googled / eBayed for many weeks found lots of aftermarket headlights... However i could see that these were not vey bright and cheap looking.

I decided to modify my headlights and make my own DRLs whilst retaining the OEM look. i previously purchased some RING day time running lights on a previous project and i knew these were SUPER bright, and easy to install.

here's how i got on: Apologies for the pic heavy thread.


Audi B7 DRL head light mod (click on each image to enlarge)

first let me show you the DRl's i purchased



these i bought from halfrauds, not the cheapest place but on the shelf so could pick up myself.
these lights are brilliant for two reasons. 1) there super bright, and have a dimming feature for night time
2) only 3 wires to installation, and no switches required fully automated when engines started.


now i had everything i need for the mod i began with stripping the head light. once i had them split i noticed that there was a plastic trim separate from the headlight unit and attached to the clear lens part. this was great and i decide to mount these on that part.

lights at the start:

i had already stripped them few days before to do the chrome to black mod, and remove the amber lens.


here's some pics of the process: (i used a soldering iron to melt the plastic together)




now that i had the light in place i had large gaps to fill. so i cut up some old bits of plastic i had and began making the shape



here a quick comparison with a standard light next to the one i built:



at this stage i was very pleased with how this was going.. next i needed to smooth off the new part.
and as there would be heat in the headlight i used fibreglass filler.



now the new part was all smoothed and ready for paint.
I was about to respray my car white so wanted the a black theme headlight.
but i wanted the part to look OEM, so tried to make it look as plastic as possible. for this i used texture black bumper paint.



time to rebuild the lights and test them out (here a modified next to a OEM)



here's the car just after i painted it white, first time i fitted the lights.




i'm very very pleased with the result, it makes the car look much newer. the neigbour thort the car was brand new when i brought it home ha.

heres a pic of the car out on the road - well in a field ha.




a long thread i know, sorry.. hope you found it interesting. your feedback and opinions would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

how do i get the pics to show up..????

right uploaded the images thanks for info

TOM.S said:

not exactly what I thought of.
I was under the impression , that we're talking abut a LED stripe.

Good effort mate looks mean.
how difficult , time consuming was this mod to be done?

I'm thinking of doing this in the future so I appreciate every thread like this one.

Click to expand...

thanks, it wasnt exacty easy and straight forward. but i think the extra effort was worth it to retain the OEM look.
cant stand the cheap stick on DRL's - it was a very time consuming mod i'll admit. took a few days as its slow process melting plastic, and doing two was tough as i needed to ensure they both were symetrical.

in total the lights cost £60, paint was £10 so the total cost for this mod was only £7o. bargain for the look it achieved IMO

looks good, but shame there blue this is what i think makes the car look cheap.

can you get white ones to do it.? if so it would look brill.

bez101 said:

it takes the audi look away from the car tho

Click to expand...

why do you say that? Ha - Still looks audi to me.

I understand where your coming from. More curves in most audis but there are some OEM styles very simular so don't think it cheapens it.

example:

mine vs. new TT




Not that dissimilar