Alternative way to open headlamps?

[Enjay]

Anyone know of an alternative way to open the headlamps (without damaging them) without sticking them in an oven?  My oven isn't big enough.  s:? :? s:?

I *think* I know someone with a big enough oven, but I'm not sure if they'll let me use it.

I'd like to get my driver's side lamp open to clean it on the inside.  It looks like a previous owner may have opened it before but left fingerprints/marks on the inside.  I've got the outsides nice and clean/clear but the inside of one is a bit messy.

[Fin]

You can use a heat gun on the back, just to warm where the glue is.
The main word here is 'warm'. The black plastic is soft, and easy to damage if you hold the gun too long in one place.
You are only trying to warm and soften the glue, not melt it. Then you can gently prize the two halves apart.

[Enjay]

I'll maybe give that a go, thanks.  I'm always worried that I mess things up with a heat gun.  I have held my one in place a few times and damaged stuff I was just trying to "warm".  Presumably you can't get the whole thing warm enough at one time like you can with an oven.  Does it work well enough just doing it in sections?

I take it a hair-dryer won't get things quite warm enough?

Anyway, I have a pair of spare headlamps sitting in the garage so I can maybe practice on them.  (I class them as spare because the lenses are quite "crazed" (lots of little cracks).)

[Fin]

The glue stays soft for a while. I normally start prizing them apart carefully with a straight edge (wallpaper scraper etc), then pull once I can get my fingers in there.
I try not to hold the gun in place for more than 5 to 10 seconds, and run it around the back edge slowly and repeatedly. Only takes a couple of minutes. The glue is like a soft rubber.

[Enjay]

OK, thanks very much for the tips.  I'm slowly getting there with making my car how I want it and that mucky headlamp is annoying me.


As a complete side point, the sets of lamps I have are different.  It could be that one set is on an import and the other came from a UK spec car but the lamps look different inside.  The import ones do not have a little metal "cage" around the bulb but the UK spec ones do.  If that's not clear, I'll post a picture (if it stops raining).  The cage-less ones have gone through plenty of MOTs.

[Essex2Visuvesi]

You mind one of these helpful

Plastic Pizza cutter, less chance of damaging the plastic

[Fin]

Not quite sure what you mean. The PFL were a single bulb twin filament reflector light, where the FL lights had twin bulbs, with the dip being a projector light. The surround on the PFL was black plastic, not mirrored. Would that explain the difference?

[SteveJ]

I've had both types on PFL cars (albeit one of them was a grey import from Europe)

[Enjay]

Not quite sure what you mean. The PFL were a single bulb twin filament reflector light, where the FL lights had twin bulbs, with the dip being a projector light. The surround on the PFL was black plastic, not mirrored. Would that explain the difference?

They're both PFL lamps but, on the UK spec one the lamp housing has a little metal cage around the bulb with a sort of dish or cap on the end.  Hang on, a quick drawing...



Pizza cutter tip - I like it.  I've got quite a few plastic trim tools as well so they should come in handy.  The pizza cutter will have a firmer/harder blade for leverage though I suspect.

[Enjay]

OK, well I gave the heatgun thing a go and I can certainly see why having the whole unit evenly heated in an oven is much better.  I got there in the end but it was more awkward than if I'd been able to put it on the oven.  I think I'll wait and see if I can get my lamps in an oven for when I do it properly.

Also, I was remembering the "cage" wrongly.  It has looked like the diagram I drew on other cars I've owned but it's different on the MR2.  I was talking about this bit:



and, having a closer look at the lamps on my car, it might be that a previous owner has removed them!  There seem to be little slots where they should fit in to.  That would certainly explain why the two are different.

[edit] Oh yeah, and I need to buy a new pizza cutter too.  s:oops: :oops: s:oops:   s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

[Enjay]

Well, I can now confirm that heating the lamps properly in an oven is much, much easier than trying to do them with a heat gun.  

My oven isn't big enough but my mum's one is.   s:twisted: :twisted: s:twisted:   She's getting on a bit and is also a bit deaf so explaining to her why I needed to cook my headlamps in her oven was the most difficult part.  She hardly ever cooks these days and so my headlamps are actually the first things ever to be heated up in the larger oven in her cooker - despite the fact she's had it for something like 5 years.  s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

The lamps on my car were mucky on the inside, as I mentioned, and also had the problem of the missing reflective cover thing for the main bulb described above.  Other than being mucky though, the front lenses were in pretty good nick.  The backs were less so.  In addition to having their bulb covers removed, I discovered that each one had at least one attachment tab damaged.

However, the spare lamps that I had were the other way around.  The lenses on those were all cracked/crazed but the bases were fine.

So, what I did was take the good (but dirty) lenses off my lamps, cleaned them and then put them on the good bases of the lamps with the crazed lenses thereby making one good set from two poor ones (so, yes, I "cooked" 4 headlamps in my mum's oven).  The finger prints (or whatever they were) inside my lamps are all gone now but there were a couple of minor scratches on the inside too (no idea why - probably happened when the previous owner removed the bulb covers).  They aren't really noticeable though so I'm happy with the result.

[Fin]

Good job well done  s:) s:)
As for the tabs, they were designed to break off so the lamp would pop out with minor damage in case of a bump.
You can buy replacement tabs from your local Mr T if needed, they simply screw on and make the lamp nice and firm again. I bought a set with broken tabs a while back, I think I paid about a tenner for a set of replacements.

[CrazySX]

Hi Guys,

Sorry I didn't see this earlier, but hopefully this will help others.

If you don't have an oven big enough or don't want to use your oven then do the below.

Get a large cardboard box, bigger than the lamp by at least 20%.

Make a hole in the (any) bottom corner big enough to fit the nozzle of your heat gun or hairdryer.

Get a piece of card and bend it. Put it inside the box where the heat gun nozzle comes in to deflect the heat.

Put headlamp in. Close box. Select heat level of choice. Leave for 5-10mins and check if it's ready to eat  s;) s;)

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