2004 Mercury Mountaineer Custom Headlights

Lens Etching, Paintwork, Projector Retrofit

Ho Ho Hoooooo! I don’t much care for a holiday based around consumerism, but I do find ways to enjoy the Xmas season. First, by decorating my car. Second, gifting my parents a super awesome custom made headlight set for their 2004 Mercury Mountaineer.

Let’s be real. Their headlights sucked. The output was embarrassing. Downright dangerous for anyone with less-than-perfect night vision. So this present originally started in my mind as addressing a safety concern. Then it developed into making an eye-catching set of high-performance headlights with which they can show off proudly to their friends.

Let’s start by showing what we’re working with here:

As you can see, the headlights are old and foggy and cracked and the output is dismal. First thing first: buy a new set of housings. And strip away all that chrome!

I went with the Morimoto D2S 4.0 projector lens assembly on this build because of it’s large size and amazingly wide beam pattern. It’s a real powerhouse of a threaded shaft mount projector and well worth the effort. I felt the Orbit shroud would compliment the styling of the vehicle. Fitment and trim time:

Sneaked a peak at the paint code on the car during Thanksgiving so I could body-match the Ford tri stage paint. Pretty.

It was mentioned to me that I should sign the headlights since they were essentially a piece of art being given as a gift. Well I know one really sweet way to sign a set of headlights…. Etched lenses! Yayyyy!

All right, let’s get these assembled and some pictures:

But we’re not done yet. Really important additional service is the exterior clear coat. This makes your plastic headlights have the same protection as the paint on your vehicle. It helps the plastic resist cracking, fading, or yellowing with time. It also makes them especially shiny!

Buffed and polished and ready for installation:

Testing out the equipment in the shop:

Once everything was confirmed operational, I packed up all the equipment and headed over across the state to my family’s house to get these awesome things installed.

Officially on the vehicle: