Front Bumper Mods

StuP · July 15, 2010

Having fitted a TTE bumper without the headlight washers recently i decided it was time to get the washer switch to do something once again. Rather than fit the original washers which can be seen through the grille i decided to get a pair of the colour coded fan screen washer jets for the 2003 IS200 from a Lexus dealer and fit them discretely in the top of the bumper (pics to follow as its raining at the moment!)which seemed to be more reliable and neat IMO. Whilst doing this I noticed that the fog lights have a similar assembly to the headlights (2 parts joined with thermal glue) and so ten minutes at 80 in the oven and i had the lenses removed, and an hour later blackened inside like my headlights and reassembled. I'll get some pics posted when the sun comes out but in my opinion both mods are worth doing (washers only if you havent fitted the original ones that pop out of the bumper) and only take a morning/afternoon to do.

1. Remove bumper

2. Remove foglights from bumper by removing the two screws on the inner side of the foglight that go through the mounting hole in the bumper and unclip the wires going into the back

3. Preheat oven to 80 degrees

4. Remove bulbs from back of foglights (standard halogen twist mount)

5. Put foglights in oven for ten minutes

6. Whilst foglights in oven drill holes in top of bumper for the washers to clip into (requires 10mm drill bit and a small square file)

7. Remove foglights from oven and gently separate lenses from the rest of the unit using a flat bladed screwdriver (the lens and reflector may come out togeteher)

8. Remove Reflector from inside the lens and roughen using scouring pad

9. Use a plastic primer on the reflector to provide a good key for the paint

10. Paint the reflector using your chosen colour

11. Whilst these are drying fit the washer jets into the holes in the bumper and attach new lengths of hose to each as they are much smaller than the existing washers and connect using a t-piece to the headlight washer pump on the bottom of the screenwash reservoir (i made my own but essentially you need a 10mm to 2x4mm t-piece adaptor)

12. Once dry reassemble the foglights as well as you can and put back in the oven for ten minutes (this will soften the glue again and you can then assemble properly)

13. Refit bulbs and then foglights back into the bumper and then bumper back on the car.

It took me just over two hours with the constant threat of rain, hence i didn't have time to get stage by stage pics for doing this. There are threads on here for removing the bumper and fitting halos in headlights so my advice is to use their guides for more in depth guidance on the difficult bits with this as an overview if you like the idea of the mod.