Need DIY: Headlight cleaning
 

I havent really had a chance to get a good look but there is dirt on the inside of my headlights... wtf!?!!?!

how do i take them off/get in there to clean them out/seal it so it doesnt happen again?

thanks yall

--noob

You can't

It's covered by warranty if you have it.

yeah it is under warranty but that takes forever and is such a pain... id rather do it myself... anyone know how?

I would go to have it warrantied, but that is up to you.

1. You can take everything off relating to bulbs, etc and put in the oven for a bit then pry them apart. Clean by hand and reseal.

2. You can take them out, take out bulbs, etc, pour alochol and/or distilled water swish around, and let dry.

I did option 2 for my tail lights when I had some dirty water spots from bad gasket recall. I still have water spots but you can only see them when you get up close.

Try Meguiars Plastx..it's an awesome product..i dont know about the inside but i just passed it on the outside of the head lights and it made a huge difference.

plastic X will clean the OUTSIDE, give it a shot.
If it's inside, your only option is to bake the headlamps open. Hope you don't mess it up, they're EXPENSIVE.

There is a thread on baking your headlights open. The crazy kid with the camo patterned blue RX-8 did it. Something about 5 minutes at 200 degrees then try and pry it open a bit. repeat till everything unseals.

It is very very important to get the temp right or you will melt your headlight and be out 600 bucks. So don't take my word on what temps to use. Go find the angel eyes thread.

I open'd my headlights by heating them with hot air gun. Didn't quite trust the owen-method...

It took about 20 minutes per headlight to eavenly heat it around the seam with 1/2 power. After that i started to pry them open with my fingers, carefully! My girlfriend helped me by pointing the hot air gun to the spot which i was prying open. I started from "inboard" end of headlight and moved with upper seam till "outboard" end of headlight. The lower seam is quite straight with some clips and that is the last seam that you open. After the upper seam and the both end's are open you can just bend the headlight cover down to get the cover off. Worked with both lights and all the clips stayed intact.



You'll need:

- Hot air gun
- a pair of good utility gloves (so your fingers wont burn)
- someone to help with hot air gun when you start to pry open the headlight
- a knive and/or srewdriver to remove old sealant from the seams
- a bottle of Sili Gasket or something like that to reseal the headlights

Anyone have a DIY or could post some good instruction on how to remove the lights from the car? And do HIDs change anything with the procedure?

Hi,

i used this: http://smrmicro.com/rx8servicemanual/

From there you'll find step by step procedure with pictures how to remove your front bumper and how to take out the headlights. See my previous post how to take the headlight apart.