Home made silver signal bulbs for front (archive)

I have read from a least one other member of this board, that they installed Phillips SilverVisions signal lamps for the rear clear light assemblies, which I did too. They look great when not light, and look comepltely amber when lit. Only draw back is now the front clear lenses look funny with their egg yolk amber bulbs. I asked autolampsonline.com if they could find any dual lamps like this and read all the forums but there are no dual filament SilverVision (or competitor) lamps made whcih are needed for our pre 99 E38's. However, I came across a post while lurking on the E39 forum that someone there used high temp alumnimum paint to make their own from amber bulbs. I tried this today, and it works! Looks great and cost $3.99 for the can of spray paint,enough to make @ 50 bulbs!! ;-),
and I re-used the amber lamps I had in the car now.

The technique described by the E39 post was to lightly mist the paint onto the amber bulb. Don't use so much paint that it covers but just enough to tint the amber to silver. You should still see amber showing through between the little dots of silver paint. I used one of my old rear amber lamps to practice with and I used too much paint, so I recommend getting a test bulb, (at $4.00 a pair I figure what the hell). I don't know yet if this paint will discolor over a long period of time, but I ran them till they were too hot to touch today and they did not even smoke. The high temp paint I bought is a ceramic base, so maybe this is important and maybe not, don't know. I'll post again if they get weird, but for now I am a happy camper!! Only wish I knew this trick before I spent $30.00 on the Philips ones for the rear.
John
"Bettie"
Jet Black 98 740iL

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