D4 headlight care

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stuart02

Yeah right, thanks - It's a good thought although I'd love to hear from someone who has bravely and successfully cooked their headlights to loosen the adhesive and get the old lenses off! (anybody?)

---

I have not done it personally but read about plenty who have done it on this forum and on the UK forums. When you say "cooked" that is a bit melodramatic - just need to use a hair dryer around the joins to soften the glue and gently prise the poly carbonate lens off the light housing.

The PowerfulUK page on the lens replacements for the D3 has a video of them doing it.

P.s Nice to see a thread by LandyAndy pop up. I do miss him![/QUOTE]


I figured I'd have more cachet by re-booting one of his threads than starting my own! :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 101RRS

I have not done it personally but read about plenty who have done it on this forum and on the UK forums. When you say "cooked" that is a bit melodramatic - just need to use a hair dryer around the joins to soften the glue and gently prise the poly carbonate lens off the light housing.

---

Haha I'm not immune to melodrama but in saying "cooked" I was only paraphrasing Powerful Uk themselves - "We have not done this replacement ourselves yet. The trickiest part is removing the old lens which is bonded into place. With previous headlight upgrades we have had some success by baking the headlight assembly first at a low temp to loosen the bonding material around the old lens."

They probably need to work on their sales pitch...
Hair dryer is a good suggestion, thankyou, though I'd have to concede to my partner that it actually /is/ a useful device... [bighmmm]

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stuart02

Does Vuplex work on headlights with that surface abrasion? I've been quoted $400/headlight to rub them back and recoat them so am interested in DIY alternatives. But in my experience there's a lot of snake oil out there...

---

Do not use toothpaste, shoe polish, cut in a can etc. To properly restore a headlight it takes several grades of sanding and compounding to remove all of the fine scratches from previous steps.

After sanding, you have now removed most of the UV protective coating, if you don't replace it, the headlight will yellow again very quickly. It needs to be sealed either with a clear coat or a proper ceramic coating (if it comes in a spray, it's not a ceramic coating).

400 dollars is a lot of money for headlight restoration. I'd expect no more than 200.