Lorin
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2010
- Messages
- 1,447
I read somewhere that you can get the lenses off your headlights by putting the headlight unit in the oven just long enough to soften the glue so the lense can be prized off - and I can honestly attest that it works. Just a few months ago I used exactly this method to remove both my headlight lenses and clean the refectors after the lights had filled up with part of Salisbury plain.
Unfortunately Lincomb resulted in both lights needing to be cleaned again. So, seeing as this job is a PITA I decided this time I would do a "proper" job. The plan was to get the lenses off and remove all the old glue replacing it with good quality silicone. The advantages being that it would improve water-proofing and make it much easier to remove the lenses in the future should I ever need to again (i.e., without having to bake them in the oven).
Here's how it went.........
First headlight before baking:
After spending literally hours painstakingly removing the old glue and successfully cleaning:
Then things went a bit pearshaped. With the first headlight I had experimented with both heating and freezing the light to see what made removing the glue easiest. None of it helped. Heating made it stickier so that it stuck like s**t to anything it touched. Freezing set it like concrete. In the end it had been best to work at room temperature scraping and removing the glue piece by piece.
I decided what was needed was more heat. I had noticed that in cleaning the glue off the lense, when heated up just a little bit more the glue became runny and could be largely wiped off. So, back into the oven the unit went for a mere 5 minutes - bearing in mind I had baked them for 10 to get the lenses off.
Unfortunately I failed to account for the fact the oven was now preheated
In total I spent just under 6 hours to achieve one clean headlight and a requirement to buy another. Took me about 30 minutes to get the headlights out of the truck, another 30 minutes to bake both units and get the lenses off, seriously about 3 hours to get all the old glue off the first light , and nearly 2 hours to remove the second light from the oven shelf it had morphed with and remove all the molten plastic from the oven and oven shelf. 5 bl**dy minutes
It would have been cheaper and easier to have bought new headlights!
180 degrees, fan assisted for those interested.
Unfortunately Lincomb resulted in both lights needing to be cleaned again. So, seeing as this job is a PITA I decided this time I would do a "proper" job. The plan was to get the lenses off and remove all the old glue replacing it with good quality silicone. The advantages being that it would improve water-proofing and make it much easier to remove the lenses in the future should I ever need to again (i.e., without having to bake them in the oven).
Here's how it went.........
First headlight before baking:
After spending literally hours painstakingly removing the old glue and successfully cleaning:
Then things went a bit pearshaped. With the first headlight I had experimented with both heating and freezing the light to see what made removing the glue easiest. None of it helped. Heating made it stickier so that it stuck like s**t to anything it touched. Freezing set it like concrete. In the end it had been best to work at room temperature scraping and removing the glue piece by piece.
I decided what was needed was more heat. I had noticed that in cleaning the glue off the lense, when heated up just a little bit more the glue became runny and could be largely wiped off. So, back into the oven the unit went for a mere 5 minutes - bearing in mind I had baked them for 10 to get the lenses off.
Unfortunately I failed to account for the fact the oven was now preheated
In total I spent just under 6 hours to achieve one clean headlight and a requirement to buy another. Took me about 30 minutes to get the headlights out of the truck, another 30 minutes to bake both units and get the lenses off, seriously about 3 hours to get all the old glue off the first light , and nearly 2 hours to remove the second light from the oven shelf it had morphed with and remove all the molten plastic from the oven and oven shelf. 5 bl**dy minutes
It would have been cheaper and easier to have bought new headlights!
180 degrees, fan assisted for those interested.