allen405 Posted October 16, 2010 Report Share Posted October 16, 2010 Since I have my bumper off (I basically parked it for season), I was going to work on my bumper lights because they look a little dirty inside. I got the clips off that hold the glass in place but what is the best was to separate the glass from the plastic housing without breaking anything? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burton Posted October 16, 2010 Report Share Posted October 16, 2010 (edited) Heat. I used a heat gun to soften the glue and pry them apart, but be carefull when prying, especially the plastic lens for the turn signals. If you don't get the glue hot enough to make it soften up and try to pry on plastic lenses, they will break pretty easy. The glass lens of the park/fog light is a little sturdier and harder to crack than the plastic, but it is still glass after all, so it could also break if you didn't soften the glue enough. You will also want to heat it up from the back of the housing so as not to warp the plastic lenses. And you will need to get it good and hot. Not hot enough to start deforming the plastic of the housing, but it will be hot enough to be difficult to hold without some gloves or something. Other people have used soaking in super hot water or baking in an oven for a while to soften the glue, and have had great success, but I've always just used a heat gun, so I'm not sure of the exact temps and specs of the other ways to do it. EDIT--- There was a thread not too long ago about taking apart tail lights. I can't remember if it was in the Body or Restoration forum, but went to try and find it, and couldn't. It may have even been in the BS section. That thread had a bunch of different ways to do tail lights, including a video, I think. Anyway, you basically use the same steps you'd use on tail lights to do the fog/park/turn lights on the front. Edited October 16, 2010 by Burton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D_Venable Posted October 16, 2010 Report Share Posted October 16, 2010 Mark, that works great for the tails, but I had NO luck heating the fog light housings from the back, the plastic of the fog housings isn't as sturdy as the tails, and bends a lot quicker. I heated the fog and turn lenses from the front with a heat gun, and had good luck with that without distorting the lens. Dwayne, if you do mess up the lenses somehow, I've got the ones that were off the housings in the flatty that you can just have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zack_Morris Posted October 16, 2010 Report Share Posted October 16, 2010 I put mine in the oven @ 250* for ~10 minutes. Softens the glue up enough to pull them apart without damaging anything, but leaves the glue intact to where you can reheat the glue and they'll reseal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burton Posted October 16, 2010 Report Share Posted October 16, 2010 Mark, that works great for the tails, but I had NO luck heating the fog light housings from the back, the plastic of the fog housings isn't as sturdy as the tails, and bends a lot quicker. I heated the fog and turn lenses from the front with a heat gun, and had good luck with that without distorting the lens. Damn, short term memory loss ! LOL Now that you mention it, you're right. I had the same troubles heating from behind on the fogs, so I heated the glass lens itself and then once it was hot enough, I popped it off. By that time, I heated the back of the housing for the turn lens, and it popped off pretty easily, but now that I think about it, most of the softening of the glue for the turn lens probably happened when I was heating the glass fog/park lens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allen405 Posted October 16, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 16, 2010 Mark, that works great for the tails, but I had NO luck heating the fog light housings from the back, the plastic of the fog housings isn't as sturdy as the tails, and bends a lot quicker. I heated the fog and turn lenses from the front with a heat gun, and had good luck with that without distorting the lens. Dwayne, if you do mess up the lenses somehow, I've got the ones that were off the housings in the flatty that you can just have.OK, well I just happen to notice that they were a little dingy and there was some rust in the main part where the bulb sits on the main fog light. I was just kinda bored and wanted to do something but if one ends up broken i will take that offer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScooterDude92 Posted October 17, 2010 Report Share Posted October 17, 2010 i got this stuff dentist use to get the glue off of dentors and it works great for that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allen405 Posted October 17, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2010 I put mine in the oven @ 250* for ~10 minutes. Softens the glue up enough to pull them apart without damaging anything, but leaves the glue intact to where you can reheat the glue and they'll reseal.lol I did that and it worked. Nothing like fresh backed fog lights mmmm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts