Cure for condensation inside headlight lenses???

[my98gsx]

After almost 10 years of being sandblasted on the road, my stock headlights were due for an uplift. While in the process of my winter DSM projects I threw away my stock headlights - not knowig that they are VERY expencive. Leaving me only to buy projector headlights in my budget. They look great but theres one problem, the drivers side foggs up everytime it rains. Ive talked to people who say "AH, just throw some clear sylicone around the housing it'll work fine..." Im not one to just throw some permitex on a headlight! Does anyone have any tricks on how to fix this? Ive seen many 95-99 eclipses with the same problem...

 

[blcknspo0ln]

Search for "bake headlights" or something to that effect. I would bake the headlight, remove the lens and reseal with some clear RTV

 

[Daaan]

Yea search up about baking them. When you do so you can take it apart and reseal it yourself ensuring its sealed.

 

[djjohns55]

You may not need to bake it it could be that your oring on the turn signal bulb socket is bad or missing or the socket has fallen out of the housing.
Make sure that all of the caps that you remove to check the headlight are present and secured.

I had a similar problem after baked my headlights but I found out that my turn signal socket had fallen out of the housing because I didn't lock it when I
replaced the bulbs.

 

[crimsondragon]

If you guys read it clearly, it's about actual fogging as in water inside the headlight, not about it getting scuffed up. No amount of sandpaper will get rid of water inside the housing.

 

[tunethis]

You are going to have the take them apart, clean the lenses on the inside, clean the old glue off both the housings and the lenses, and put new clear silicon on them like someone else mentioned above. Let them dry before installation. Also, check the little black rubber vent hoses on the housings to make sure they are not clogged.

 

[meliketoball]

I bought ebay headlights and didn't like them. I still had my stock ones around which the lens was sent straight to hell. I baked both, separated the housings and put the new ebay ones onto my stockers. Now, I have brand new looking headlights.

 

[Defiant]

Everyone's getting thrown by the OP starting out with physical damage to the lenses. This isn't about discoloration nor scratches, it's about water inside the headlight housings, on the inside of the lenses.

I'm with the clear vent and silicone plan. Make sure that housing can breathe. The heat from the bulbs should be cooking-out any accumulated moisture.

Here's the baking process:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050405014941/http://www.auburn.edu/~fauchpj/headlight.htm

The original site is long-dead. The Wayback's been flaky for the last few weeks, it may take several tries.

 

[DGajre777]

The last time this happened in my car (with my 92 Eclipse), I took a blow/hair dryer to it until all the condensation had gone.