Baking my headlights

[mitsumikey]

hey everybody my car's front end has been ripped apart over a week now, and all that is holding me back from putting it back together is my headlights, so I really want to finish them up before I put them back on. The problem is I cannot find the how to on here anymore, and every thread is just miscellaneous unshure information. I need to know a good safe temperature(I have never done this and dont want to break them), I guess your stoves over there are Farenhieght too? one thing I think us canadians and americans acutally have in common Also I dont know how much to remove, I have all 3 bulbs out and their covers, I took off the level cover, but cant get the level or the gears out. So will my gears be fine with the heat, and what about the level, and the wires and sockets? And last of all what is good to reseal them with?(I guess cocking, but I want it to be able to come apart with the same process, and which cocking is good, or what is recommended?) Sorry for the long post, I have a habit of being very detailed...

 

[crimsondragon]

I think 250 degrees should do the trick.

 

[snowborder714]

When I did it, the only thing I removed was the bulbs. Everything else should be fine in the oven. I heated the oven to 250* or so and once it reached that temp, I turned it off. Then I put the headlights in for about 10 minutes on a cookie sheet with a damp towel between the cookie sheet and the headlights. Then I'd take them out, pry at them a bit with a flat head screwdriver and see if they're starting to separate. They may, they may not. I think when I did mine, I ended up having them in and out 3 times and they were in the oven for about 15 minutes or so. Then to reseal them, I just used clear silicone sealant.

You can do a quick google search on baking headlights to find numerous ways of doing it. I wouldn't recommend leaving the oven on with the headlights in there though. Just try it and figure out what works best.

 

[IIv SHaDoW vII]

My advice is... Reseal them with silicon.. dont rely on the old stuff... First time it rains you know why I said reseal with new stuff.

 

[mitsumikey]

I dont plan on resealing with old stuff, that seems rather dumb, anyways got the passenger light apart today, took about 4 rounds of baking at 250-275, I put them on a damp towel on a baking tray, preheated oven and turned oven off when I put them in. Was rather easy, found it works best to get them open at one side(small side seems easier), then start prying at them gently and cuting the glue/prying them open more

 

[IIv SHaDoW vII]

Yeh it is easy.. Reason I said that is.. after baking mine and doing the work, my friend who has a focus decided he wanted to paint the insides of his.. Well he decided to just reseal them with the old stuff.. now his headlights have a cool waterfall effect when it rains.. Now thats custom! Me on the other hand.. I bought some 3 dollar silicon from AAP because, as you said, it would be dumb not to.

 

[Defiant]

Headlight

 

[clean96GST]

Ok so I read in a thread somewhere ( don't remember where and searched but didn't find) and it said you can cook your headlights to seperate the cover from the lights... so how do i do it? and how do i seal it back together?

 

[kahl23]

If you wanted to clean your lenses or build some HIDs (like I did) you need to separate the two halves. You set the oven to 200 and toss them in for a few minutes (just be careful you don't melt the headlights). Before you toss them in, remove the metal clips that are spread throughout the seam. After a few minutes, the glue should be soft and you can pry them apart. Be warned, it is a messy process and should not be done unless you really want to separate the headlights. Once you have them apart, don't try to clean out the halves, because you can reuse the glue. Once you're done working on the headlights, toss them back in the oven and reheat the glue. Then shove them back together applying pressure to every part of the seam. Before you reinstall the metal clips, take some silicon caulk that's used to seal windows and run a bead along the seam. Smooth it out with your fingers. Finally, put those clips on and hope you don't have any leaks.

 

[interex]

I have used a heat gun in the past when seperating head lights to clean out fogging/frosting. But using the oven sounds like it could be a good way of doing it.

 

[dsmmaniac12787]

Build HIDs?

 

[Novice]

Also to get that yellow grime off a good wet sanding will work. And, believe it or not Off Bug Spray works kick ass on yellow headlights!

[See any of the "Headlight Cleaning" posts in the Technical Articles forum.]

 

[kahl23]

dsmmaniac, building HIDs for our cars involves taking projectors out of another car (in my case I used the bi-xenons from a Nissan Altima) and adapting them to fit our cars. It's a hell of a lot of work. Search and you'll find a few posts on the matter.