forg0tmypen

Since the day I bought my Z06 I knew I would be replacing the headlight lenses. Well, that day has finally come and the results were amazing. The task was not as hard as I thought it would be, just a lot of hard work and sweat. Here are the pictures:

Here are the headlights fresh off the car:







In the oven:



After a lot of prying off the old lens, here it is sitting next to its replacement:



I think this is a great shot of just how bad the old lenses were:





Here is the housing with half of the adhesive removed:



Up close:



Here is the adhesive in my hand, it all pulls out as one piece for the most part:



Here are the housings with both channels empty and ready for their new lenses:



Here is all the lens and bezel hardware sitting on the floor. Note, this is before I had the bezel repainted:



Here is a shot of the bezels in the booth freshly repainted:





Here are some shots at home in the light:







Not glued down yet, but with the new lenses:





Finally, here is one headlight, clamped down, ready to cure for the night:





And the money shot:




Overall, I am very pleased with how everything turned out. I would have posted this up weeks ago but I had an accident. I woke up one monday morning to find one headlight lens not only had multiple PL Premium adhesive fingerprints all over it, but also had a strange fog spot about the size of 4 quarters. I tried windex, a heat gun, anything to get it off and nothing worked. I pried open the lens again only to find that the spot wasn't on the inside as well...strange. I ordered a new lens for $150 and all is well. My only concern after all of this is whether or not the new adhesive will hold up. From what I have seen from the factory stuff compared to what I used, the factory adhesive seems much stronger...I guess time will tell.

boraxman

Nice job...Looks like alot of work!

Thompyt

Looks great. I was going to say the glue isn't the black OEM type. I found that the glue we used after does come off a LOT easier though. Did you consider Angel eyes?

dvilin

Nicely done, sure does look like a lot more work than most people would be willing to take on, me included.

AORoads

nice work.

JW Motorsports

Nice!

designerRob

Very well done. What glue did you use? And did you have to heat each headlight only once to remove the old adhesive, or multiple times? Very cool!

peter pan

Nice write up and they look new

forg0tmypen

It was a lot of work, especially since I essentially did 3 headlights rather than 2 because of the defect in one of the lenses. I didn't even consider angel eyes. I really don't know if I like the look or not and I don't know much about them. If someone wants to link me to some info on them I'll take a look. As for the adhesive I used, I mentioned it in the last paragraph PL Premium from Home Depot. A lot of the instructions and materials and methods are kept secret by the various headlight vendors. I paid $25 to RLSebring for the instructions. They're pretty thorough. Like I said, my only concern is the adhesive and it's durability.

To answer Designer Robs question: I had to reheat them a couple times for the factory adhesive. For the PL premium, it only took HALF of one baking session to pry it off and it was not hard at all. The only condition to that was, the glue was only 22 hours old at the time, from what I could tell, it takes 48-72 hours for full set.

The research I did suggested the headlights are not air tight, and the glue is more of a mechanical bond rather that a chemical. This can be observed by the fact that the factory adhesive pulls right out from its channel with no trace left behind.

Thompyt

forg0tmypen,
The adhesive is durable. I've had my lenses in for about a year. I still had to runthrough the proceedure a couple of times per lens to get all the adhesive off.

pcguy2u

Good job..... I agree, the unit is not weather tight, but the part that is supposed to be weather tight is at the point of the "mechanical bond". The orfices where the lights pop thru are where the moisture gets in, not to mention spiders, et al.

RLSebring

I have worked with a lot of different composite and bonding adhesives in the past. I found that the PL Polyurethane is a good alternative both in cost and performance. Very low VOC so not too much outgassing compared to most of the other adhesives. I have assemblies out there now for 3+ years without a single problem or complaint. Unless you are going to run 200+ mph you don't need the factory adhesive.

That's a very good write up and excellent job replacing your lens. I'll have to do a little right click, save if you don't mind. To help others decide, How much time do you think you have involved less cure time. BTW the adhesive definately needs min 24 hours (@70 degrees) or it will be still wet if you pull them apart.

Nice thing about the PL is when it's time to change the lens again you can pull the lens off and all the glue goes with the lens so clean up is easy making replacement a lot easier.

Jimsan

Wow, a lot of time and effort. Looks good!

forg0tmypen

Go ahead, right click away. To answer your question, Id say about 4 hours per light. That includes initial disassembly, the separation of the lens, the clean up of the old adhesive, the gluing of the new lens and the reassembly. As far as taking the lights off the car, a couple more hours...

fastskyline

this is a very good write up and I think you did a great job replacing those. do you know why the original lenses were so cloudy to begin with? was the car stored outside or something? I have noticed a lot of people complaining about foggy lenses recently and just wondering why. I have an early 05 model and mine still look like new

forg0tmypen

I don't know what happened. My best guess is sun damage and lots and lots of hwy driving. They were subjected to 70,000 miles

RLSebring

That's good to know. That is one question I get asked a lot and really didn't know for an ave time. I've gotten where I can shuck these heaadlights like oysters. Most to date I've did is twelve assemblies from removed to clamped up.

I wonder if the mods would consider making this a sticky More and more lens going bad...

designerRob

Thanks for the info.

95RCode

Is it the same procedure for getting the lens off with the PL. Oven?

James

RLSebring

Yes but about half the heat and half the time.