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Is there a How-To on headlamp dismantling for a 2009


Trillionz
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When I bought the car I did not notice one of the headlights is an aftermarket one and has a chrome "eye-brow" so to speak.:rolleyes:

It is all that I see now when I look at the car so I am looking to get inside that light(crack it open). Looked at YouTube and they are putting them in an oven to do this.

I do not fancy that,I do not have an oven of that type to do it. Plus I think there are motors in there.

Anyone else done this? 

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i believe others have attempted this using a heatgun  instead , with varied results both good and bad. , though it takes alot longer.

im of the opinion that even if you manage to crack it open ok ,  resealing will never be as good in the long term and wouldnt attempt it , i'd simply just replace the units complete - theyre not that expensive for aftermarket products.

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im fairly certain eurocarparts sell left and right side headlights seperately , in both black and chrome trim.............

just saying ;-)

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I have looked at buying a new headlight but then you see disclaimers " photo for illustrative purposes only" which means I would have to buy 2 coming in at £110. Then there is nothing wrong with mine that some black poundshop paint wouldn't sort out.:sad:

I will be going in there its nothing versus £110 :ohmy:

I am wondering about submerging it in near boiling water..............

That is about the temperature they recommend the oven to be.

I have a big 5 gallon stock pot that I make wine in and a rocket stove.:devil2:

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1 hour ago, Trillionz said:

I am wondering about submerging it in near boiling water

That wont work even if it was boiling.. The way I've seen it done is as the others have said either oven or heat gun and prizing it a lot with a screwdriver I don't know the oven temp but the heat gun does work but don't melt the plastic If I remember right the black glue starts to bubble and gets soft (with the heat Gun) I am Shure its all on Utube.Once open its looks easy to service the parts you need to look at.

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I think I have come across this butyl stuff before in sealed double glazing units. I have in the past split that with a Stanley knife.

Looks like the oven wants to be about 120-130 Celsius so 100 not too far away and looking at how long it takes them to get in there at least I can instantly re-heat by dunking  it back in and out.

Let you know how I get on:smile:

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what are you going to do if you get it open anyway ?

paint the internal bezel ?

you cant buy the parts separately 

and how are you going to prevent moisture damage to the chrome reflector after being immersed  for a lengthy period ?

seriously man , this has got fail written all over it.........  :-/

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I have always been an out of the box thinker.:smile:

I have had a look around and can not find anyone using boiling water to open them.:smile:

But I can see advantages:

1) I am outside and will not get into any trouble from the missus.:smile:

2) I can easily maintain the temperature.

3) Water on the surfaces will stop the sticky stuff sticking I should think.:smile:

I can not see boiling water hurting the reflectors if they can stand being put in the oven. They are probably plastic anyway.

I was looking to paint the chrome bit but I think now it will probably rub off to leave black plastic behind.

Will see next week when I have a go.:smile: 

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29 minutes ago, Trillionz said:

I have always been an out of the box thinker.:smile:

I have had a look around and can not find anyone using boiling water to open them.:smile:

But I can see advantages:

1) I am outside and will not get into any trouble from the missus.:smile:

2) I can easily maintain the temperature.

3) Water on the surfaces will stop the sticky stuff sticking I should think.:smile:

I can not see boiling water hurting the reflectors if they can stand being put in the oven. They are probably plastic anyway.

I was looking to paint the chrome bit but I think now it will probably rub off to leave black plastic behind.

Will see next week when I have a go.:smile: 

you might end up with the plastic part twisting or bending out of shape with such direct heat

 

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I have big laurel hedge down the bottom of my garden and hidden behind it is a scrap pile. Bits of BMW motorcycles, wind-turbines,heat-pumps, and other abandoned projects. Sometimes things go wrong but you never know until you try.:smile:

The solar powered hot water system I built myself 6 years ago for £350 works a treat though.:wink3::smile:

Got 32 gallons of wine fermenting in my conservatory right now which is a years worth of alcohol would have cost about a grand from the shops and it cost me £15.:smile:

I am a crusty old git a bit like that guy from "The Worlds Fastest Indian" I do things differently. Ask TVlicencing:devil2:

If it does not work I will say so.:smile:

But so far I am not finding anyone who has tried it.:wink3:

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1 hour ago, Trillionz said:

I have big laurel hedge down the bottom of my garden and hidden behind it is a scrap pile. Bits of BMW motorcycles, wind-turbines,heat-pumps, and other abandoned projects. Sometimes things go wrong but you never know until you try.:smile:

The solar powered hot water system I built myself 6 years ago for £350 works a treat though.:wink3::smile:

Got 32 gallons of wine fermenting in my conservatory right now which is a years worth of alcohol would have cost about a grand from the shops and it cost me £15.:smile:

I am a crusty old git a bit like that guy from "The Worlds Fastest Indian" I do things differently. Ask TVlicencing:devil2:

If it does not work I will say so.:smile:

But so far I am not finding anyone who has tried it.:wink3:

i have the chrome ones in the loft as i have the black ones on the car would like to do them .but i know from escort days they are extremely hard to take apart .i wish you luck let us know how it goes

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1 hour ago, Trillionz said:

But so far I am not finding anyone who has tried it.

 

1 hour ago, mrmetallica said:

I have always been an out of the box thinker

No you wont have as it wont work as the boiling point of water is not hot enough also  as you are an out of the box thinker how about this what about the leveling  motors on the back(if you have them) being immersed in water will do them do good.Here is an example I tried many years ago the same thing with an Aprillia 125 motorbike headlight as I wanted to fit a ring type daytime running ring round the existing head lamp. Epic fail messed it all up (pastic melted) and ended up in the bin cost me a secondhand replacement unit .Im not saying don't do it but be careful they make it look easy on utube. Oh by the way picking the black glue out with a blade or  shap ended screwdriver wont work very well will take forever plus I bet you slice you fingers no matter how careful you may be I know I did with the motorbike one. With respect the Oven or the heat gun is the best and easiest way.I don't dought your capabilities I'm sure you will get there in the end and do a good job of it.Oh I'm a crusy old git myself lol lol (so my son says)

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1 minute ago, Gizza11 said:

 

No you wont have as it wont work as the boiling point of water is not hot enough also  as you are an out of the box thinker how about this what about the leveling  motors on the back(if you have them) being immersed in water will do them do good.Here is an example I tried many years ago the same thing with an Aprillia 125 motorbike headlight as I wanted to fit a ring type daytime running ring round the existing head lamp. Epic fail messed it all up (pastic melted) and ended up in the bin cost me a secondhand replacement unit .Im not saying don't do it but be careful they make it look easy on utube. Oh by the way picking the black glue out with a blade or  shap ended screwdriver wont work very well will take forever plus I bet you slice you fingers no matter how careful you may be I know I did with the motorbike one. With respect the Oven or the heat gun is the best and easiest way.I don't dought your capabilities I'm sure you will get there in the end and do a good job of it.Oh I'm a crusy old git myself lol lol (so my son says)

how did it end up with me saying im an out of box thinker?

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Coming from someone who retrofitted some projectors in to his lamps I can promise you that opening up the FORD lamps are unbelievably difficult. 

The construction of the ford ones use PermaSeal holding them together and its given that name for a very good reason, its a complete bugger to get apart.  the temperature to melt the glue is about 2c less than the temperature to melt the plastic housing on the back of the lamp meaning that even if you get it hot enough, too much force pulling it apart will likely distort the rear housing, too hot and the housing will pull away with the lens

I kid you not, it is a complete ******* to do.

thankfully copies of the ford lamp just use regular sealant which can actually be melted enough to prise apart with a good hair dryer or a heatgun set to a low setting.

seriously I highly recommend you leave the ford ones alone, they are more trouble than they are worth, which as it happens is quite a lot. :/

 

 

 

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which is fine if you can get a ovan big enough to fit the huge size of the mk2.5 lamp.  I made an oven out of several layers of insulated cardboard and foil then cut a hole in the bottom to allow a pipe to enter the oven, add a deflector to prevent the heat from directly hitting the lap then used a heat gun to get it up to temp, my multimeter has a temp reader on it so I added another hole to allow that to sit towards the bottom (heat rises and you can have as much as 30c difference between the top and bottom, better insulation would reduce this). Cook it for as long as you can but it doesn't change the fact that the rear housing will begin to melt shortly after the permaseal on the Ford mk 2.5 lamp care must be taken.  personally, if I ever decided to do it again, which I hope to buggery that I never do. ill buy a pattern part and save myself hours of frustration and hassle. 1 hair dryer, 10 min work, jobs a goodun. if you look about you can get them for about 50  quid.

 

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I think it is an after-market one I am going to crack open as Etis has my car down as having black lights and this one is chrome.

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How do you know an engineer has visited your house?

Because 5 things that didn't work now work but 10 things that worked perfectly are knackered!

I applaud your spirit as I am always one to ask "well WHY can't it be done like this" but in this case even I have to admit this looks less than hopeful! I wish you luck and hope you are able to post back proving us all wrong!

I really wouldn't try the water method though. You'll get water ingress into the lamp if you do get it apart and as I think gizza said, you will knacker the levelling motors almost guaranteed. If it is an aftermarket one then a hairdryer will probably get it apart fine and be a lot more controllable than an oven.

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15 hours ago, Phil21185 said:

I really wouldn't try the water method though. You'll get water ingress into the lamp if you do get it apart and as I think gizza said, you will knacker the levelling motors almost guaranteed. If it is an aftermarket one then a hairdryer will probably get it apart fine and be a lot more controllable than an oven.

yeah, absolutely, The water will 100% not work, it wont get anywhere near hot enough as already mentioned, it would be fine (ignoring the water ingress problems) for standard sealant but not permaseal. That stuff needs to be significantly hotter than the boiling point of water so unless you also plan on using a pressurised cooker, it isn't going to work at all.aftermarket lamps are fine, at least the ones I have tried have been fine. :)

 

 

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I am going to do a test tomorrow, I will boil a pan on the gas and try one of the pointy ends in it and see if I can see the butyl giving way.:unsure:

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Good luck! Let us know won't you?

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TEST DONE!:sad:

Got my headlamp out and had a look at it. Noticed there was some butyl oozed out on one of the clips. Took a Stanley knife and trimmed it off. Put it on an upturned cup in the sink and poured boiling water on it. Quickly picked it up and pulled at it till it hurt and I managed to stretch it about an extra 25% of its length. 

Would have to say it was still so hard it would not pull apart at that temperature.:sad:

But now I know:smile:

Will bust out the heat gun tomorrow and attempt the bottom seam and a corner first.:ohmy:

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Got some more craziness for you:devil2:

After watching umpteen videos of people wrestling with these things in a hot state.............

I think I will try holding the black back part in my Workmate and put this big dent puller/glass lifter suction cup with handles on the lens and tension it with a bungee cord. In some restrained manor,not so that it hits the wall when it goes :smile::smile: 

That way I can concentrate on heating it and prying it with a constant tension pulling them apart.

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NOT DOING VERY WELL HERE:sad:

Found my suction puller and the headlight is too curved for it to grip.:sad:

BUT what I thought was an aftermarket headlamp turns out to be an original Ford item. Which makes you wonder......if they spent that much money on it why didn't they get one the same.........:ohmy:

So I have two original headlights. I think a trip to my local Focus breaker may be called for and I should be able to find a match for one of them and bung the other out on eBay as an original item.

PHEW bin tiring aint it?:rolleyes:

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